Day Keeper, Night Reaper
by Metatron Alastor
Summary: Eons pass, and Serana still sleeps. She feels only cold, hears only silence and sees nothing but darkness. On the surface, her kin are starting to get restless. The Vampire menace isn't a tale. Fear spreads like a ghastly blight, carried on the dark wings of mortal feebleness. The Godsplitter rides once more into the unknown, knowing a sole thing: The Winds of Change are blowing.
1. Prologue: Blood and Fury

A/N: Welcome to _Day Keeper, Night Reaper_. This lengthy retelling of the Dawnguard DLC doesn't follow the exact route the game forces you to take and has some unique aspects to it. Mainly, a fresh introduction to the story that will simultaneously present the main character. I just wanted to note that, even though this story uses my previous three works, _The Assassin I, II_ and _III_ , as a basis, it _isn't_ strictly necessary to have read those to understand _Day Keeper, Night Reaper_ in its entirety. The overall journey will be different between the ones who have followed me throughout _The Assassin_ and those who haven't, but it will work for both. Either way, no worries. There's no one beta reading this new project for the moment, so there could potentially be some typos and grammar mistakes. I'll periodically re-read and correct, but there still could be. As always, if there are any kinds of questions, observations or comments, feel free to leave those in any way you like.

* * *

PROLOGUE: _Blood and Fury_

The cold wastelands of the Pale were a harsh place to travel through. That day wasn't any different. The grim sky, grey with clouds ready to unleash the snowstorm, was only vaguely brightened up by the distant blaze of the Sun. A shimmering bright beyond the shroud. The mountains on the road's right were white already, and more flakes were sure to fall shortly. The pines and firs that made up the forest bordering the road were heavy with snow; some branches hadn't been able to hold the weight and had snapped. The younger plants, weaker and with less steady roots, had fell down under the overload. There were no less than a dozen fallen trunks along the road that went from Whiterun to Dawnstar, and it was only going to get worse. The wind flailed the forests cruelly, dealing the final blow to the unstable trees and even uprooting some that would hold.

The road, albeit visible, was far from free of snow. On its sides there was a high layer of it, whereas on the narrow path itself it wasn't much thicker than one foot. The hoofprints and the cart tracks were the things that helped the most, however. They made sure the right way could be kept at all times. There weren't any footprints, not one along the entire road. No one had made that journey on foot, intelligently. The path was long and difficult on horseback, let alone walking. The week before had been a sunny one, but the warmth melted the snow during the day only to let it congeal during the night. As a result, the white sheet that covered the road was mainly solid and icy, and it was almost too easy to slip upon it.

It had been a harsh winter. Long nights followed long days in which the flurries kept raging, white flakes piling on top of each other. The snowfalls lasted several days each. One in particular had become famous during the lengthy winter, one that came down from clouds so large the blizzard had raved all of Skyrim simultaneously. Even Falkreath, usually untouched and therefore uninterested in snowfalls, had been struck harshly. The blizzard had become widely known as "Alduin's Tears", and was used as an excuse to remark the recent victory of the Dragonborn. Every child born during that season would hear the stories of that snowstorm before his sleep for many years to come.

It was dangerous and daring to travel along the roads that led North. The last days of First Seed were passing by fast, but the harsh weather and the cold hadn't surrendered. Any path that went towards Dawnstar or Winterhold was still considered unsafe, but some had to travel that. Merchants and suppliers needed the money and were eager to be the first to arrive in the littoral cities to obtain better prices. The first messengers had begun their standard routines, although only for very important communications. The political situation in the land was still delicate, and the first letters talking about the end of the truce were already passing from hand to hand, and they had to be delivered to the Jarls of the northern cities same went for the couriers. However, there are also others that get back in business as soon as the snow as much as seems to melt. Criminals, highwaymen and outlaws were already building their camps, planning for the warm seasons. Thieves patrolled the road, hoping to find some undefended trader to rob.

And yet, in spite of the land slowly but steadily coming back from its forced hibernation, the road from Whiterun to Dawnstar was unsurprisingly short on rarities. Skyrim is big, and not many people inhabit it in proportion to the sheer width of the land. There weren't many strange sights to behold.

Except for the sallow corpse the Dragonborn had stumbled upon.

It had been a strange find indeed. The Dovahkiin was already halfway through the snowy expanses outside of Dawnstar, which looked queer by themselves. The sides of the road were almost one foot higher than the road itself, and he managed to see everything clearly only because he was on horseback. Truthfully, he didn't think being on the back of a normal horse would allow that, but Shadowmere was higher and bigger than any steed he had ever seen. The two of them were traveling back to Dawnstar, headed for the Sanctuary. The contract he had taken was completed, but he wanted to check back with everyone. He had also taken the time to resolve a Guild business while in Riften, so he was a little late according to the schedule.

The Dovahkiin was knowledgeable in every kind of assassination, but the one he was looking at had something completely off. He followed the short trail that led to the wall of snow on the right side of the road and then came back towards the corpse. It was no ordinary killing, and the key to solve the problem might not have been in the open as he thought. He kneeled beside the cadaver, leaning his clenched, armored fist on the icy ground and laying the opposite elbow on his knee. He felt the sides of the hood waving slowly in the breeze, the same breeze that carried the scent of frozen flesh towards him.

He analyzed what he had. The victim was an archer. It was impossible to say if he was a huntsman or a poacher, since the Jarl of Dawnstar had not only allowed but also encouraged the hunting of giants and their mammoths. The sure thing was that two mammoth tusks were tied to the man's back, and they were still there. Those alone were worth more than that chap's life, given he was who he looked like. It wasn't robbery. It wasn't a normal assassination either. It could have been no assassination at all, but no animal the Dragonborn knew of kills leaving only marks on the neck and nothing else. Everything that belonged to the man was there, even his purse; the bow and arrows were still on his back, untouched. The dagger he brought along was safe and clean in his belt. He hadn't had a chance to defend himself. Whatever attacked him must had crept up on him unseen and unheard, which further tightened the options.

The Dragonborn narrowed his eyes, looking closely at the archer. He had removed the hood the man was wearing, revealing the light complexion, strong jaws and thin brown hair. It was a forgettable face, and the Dovahkiin didn't remember any contracts or deals that had been made for the life of a fella like that. He had vast connections in Skyrim's underworld and if there was someone who wanted someone dead, he knew, whether it was Dark Brotherhood's business or not. That huntsman was on no one's black list, and he couldn't imagine someone wanting such a man dead. He couldn't have done anything bad, aside from stealing someone's wife or kick a competitor out of business. Those were trifles a killer for hire fulfilled during the warm seasons, when he was free to travel around.

The huntsman wore a light gambeson and a hide armor as protection and a thick fur hooded cape to shield himself from the cold. All of these things were untouched, not ever scratched. Further proof that he hadn't seen or fought his aggressor. The only trace was that bite mark on the neck. The skin had been pierced by pointed object, very sharp ones, but the wounds were elliptic; that meant the object had closed on itself. Like the jaws of an animal. _Or the teeth of a vampire_ , the Dragonborn said to himself, but was prone to discard that option. There were some things that didn't match, but they didn't match with any other animal he knew as well.

He slowly put two armored fingers on the neck of the victim, near the four biggest wounds. He pressed, first gently and then more and more harshly. The gashes were close to the carotid, but no blood emerged from them. The Dragonborn had no idea of how long that corpse had been in the open, but everything pointed at a short period of time. A very short period, maybe. The clouds darkened the sky, but he could tell it was around halfway in the morning, more or less. The killing had happened during the last night, that much he could safely guess. The cold was enough to lower someone's temperature enough to kill, but not to freeze the blood solid in the veins. Furthermore, the sallow color of the body suggested that the blood hadn't congealed in the body, but was no longer inside it. _That looks like a vampire. A big one. Babette's fangs would leave smaller marks._ He pondered the options, trying to find a link. Had the marks been smaller, he surely would have thought of Babette and everything would be in place.

Still, the hypothesis of the vampire didn't explain the clues nearby.

The Dovahkiin slowly raised, leaning on his fist. He casted a last glance at the corpse, and then looked at the tracks beside it. They were claw marks, but they had the vague outlines of a humanoid foot. The heel looked human, but the shape of the foot and of the toes was unnatural. It was broader, webbed and clawed. _The few vampires I've seen wear boots, some even greaves, but this is a bear foot. It's no piece of armor._ That deduction was as revealing as it was disturbing. He had never seen all the beasts that inhabited Skyrim, but he had read about most of them. And yet, he had never heard or read of a beast that has clawed feet and sucks the blood out of its victim.

 _And can apparently fly…_ he added, remembering what he had seen before. The claw marks stopped suddenly on the rim of the road, just before the wall of snow. There was a single blood drop on the ground and then the trail ended. No further trace or sign of the monster. _No way to know what it was, no clear way to track it down… Looks like I'm out of luck, this time._ He was out of luck, but not quite out of means and determination. That drop of blood was his hint. If there was one, there might have been others.

The Dragonborn looked at the distance between him and the bottom of the mountainside. It was half a mile, give or take. He could have walked that far without issues. He turned towards Shadowmere.

'You stay here.' The red-eyed beast snorted and gave him a calm and clever glance. 'Good lass,' said the Dovahkiin, turning away.

He leapt on the side of the road and tried to keep his balance. The snow was untouched and friable. It collapsed easily under the two hundred pounds of flesh and metal. He would have sunk in at every step, but that gave him enough time to look around while he walked. The absence of any real rays of light was an annoyance, but he didn't care that much. He cared about very few things, as of late. He had almost stopped caring about that very carelessness. Those moments when his inner ambition and desire for knowledge could be satiated, like the one he was experiencing, were the few occasions that kept his will to go on alive. He took every opportunity like that, after having lucidly pondered whether it was worth it or not.

He floundered about in the fresh snow, still glancing around. There was another drop of blood ahead, and he kept footslogging in that direction. _Good… It's confirmed that our mystery creature has flown away._ The blood drop was in fact in the middle of intact sleet. He was actually lucky he had spot it. The snow was slowly melting, and the droplet was dispersing in the water. It was difficult to determine how long it had been there, but the Dragonborn was quite sure of his calculations.

He continued onward. He turned back to see from where exactly he had come from, and traced a mental line between the two drops of blood. He adjusted accordingly, and immediately spot another one in the distance. He walked ahead, and saw that there a trail of droplets from that point on. So kind of the beast to point the way.

Now that the way was clearer, there was no reason to keep all that slush intact. The Dragonborn focused for a brief moment, gathering and redirecting the magicka flow from his body into his hands. He kept it there, giving it a specific form and a specific purpose. The ethereal energy molded, assuming the essence of scorching flames, and then began wrapping up the entire frame of the Dragonborn. As he released, an aura of fire spread around him, instantly turning the snow into hot water. He felt himself falling down and hitting the wet terrain, while all around him more and more of the sleet began melting and then immediately boiling.

He stood straight, letting go of the stream of magical energy. It would have lasted no more than a few minutes, but it was plenty of time for him to cover the distance that separated him from the mountainside. Free from the hindrance, the Dragonborn walked forward performing immense, swift strides. He covered an enormous distance with every single step, the same a normal man would in two paces.

He kept thinking. There were a lot of unanswered questions, and every one gave an extra layer of lethality to the threat he could have faced in mere minutes. He checked the black leather pouches attached to the cuirass, then the satchel at the height of the belt. The mixtures were still there and intact. The bandoleers held all the poisons that he needed. With time, the amount of items he had need to bring along had grown thinner. Especially since he had learned more about magic. There were spells that rendered some of his usual alchemical concoctions useless. The vast majority was still useful, but no longer essential. He had kept that in mind even when crafting the new armor.

He was now three quarters of the way towards the start of the slope that led up the mountain. There were no more blood drops to guide him, obviously, but he knew the general direction. He swept his gaze across what he could see of the mountainside. There wasn't much to see and most of it was covered by the snow anyway. There were some tress, firs most likely, and a sort of hollow in the rock. It was an unassuming cavity, but the Dragonborn kept examining it for some time. _That is way too humble of a cavern to not be a hideout of some kind,_ he thought.

He twisted the flow of magicka once more, this time forming imperceivable waves or magical force that pulsed around him. The energy irradiated freely, seeking any sign of life force there might have been. The sustained drift allowed it to spread quite far from the source, but found nothing. The Dragonborn focused more intensely; maybe he just wasn't sensing the signs, but there was no mistake. He slowly let go of the stream of power, seeing that it wasn't finding anything. There was one more thing he could do.

He closed his eyes.

The force rose from the deepest abyss of his soul, mind and body. It erupted from every shard of his being, bonding and merging together to form a flurry of pure, unaltered power that shaped space and time alike. The strength found a vessel in his flesh, rushing through his blood and resonating in his hybrid essence of both mortal and immortal. His soul acted as a catalyst, increasing the potency of the supernatural force far beyond the threshold of magical perception. The Dragonborn's eyes, though invisible under the hood, flared. Every fiber of his body quaked because of the energy that was gathering in them. At last, the force surged through him one last time and erupted from his mouth, as a whisper.

'Laas Yah Nir!'

Time and space bent to the will and whim of the Thu'um. For a few moments, the Dragonborn heard the fabric of creation itself answering his call. Everything does, but there are things that resonate in a more distinct way than others. And as he suspected, one of those was in the cave. He listened to what nature had to say. The source of that echo was bizarre. Its essence twisted, betrayed. There was something deeply wrong with that creature. It was kept standing by a blend of energies that didn't belong to this plane. The Dragonborn sighed weakly. _Definitely a vampire…_

He walked on. The aura of flame around him was starting to wane but it would have soon be useless. The layer of snow on the mountainside wasn't nearly as thick as the one on the ground. Several snow slides had brought most of it down on the flat terrain, which the Dragonborn had already surpassed. He saw and felt the ground starting to slope. The wind was frigid, but thankfully it was blowing from the North-West and he had his back turned in that direction. The cloak waved and pressed against his greaves, pushed by the gusts, but it never got in the way of his feet. The hood, especially the sides, kept flapping slowly. The Dovahkiin didn't feel the cold, though. He always wore the shirt of tempered leather underneath the armor, which had been infused with magic to shield his skin from the cold. The cuirass provided defense enough against enemies and the blouse from the elements.

He was almost at the entrance of the cavern. He crouched, staying out of the sight range an enemy could have should he or she stand right behind the entry. Silently, he crept towards the rocks beside the hollow. His boots, though made of metal, were reinforced on the sole with a thin layer of pelt that had been also imbued with magic to render the noise emitted by his footsteps nearly imperceivable. No common mortal was able to hear him approaching. With a vampire it was quite different, though. He hadn't faced many before but knew their hearing was exceptional. A misstep and he could have been discovered.

He drew the dagger, as silently as he could.

He considered the place and the situation for a little more before setting foot inside. The entrance of the cave wasn't that big, but he still could have escaped had the need arisen. The unfavorable thing was that the light of the Sun was vastly shrouded and that could have potentially been an issue. If the clouds hadn't been there, he could have counted on the possibility of a tactical retreat. The vampire would have almost certainly hesitated to follow him under the Sun, but wouldn't have if the light was veiled. He flattened against the rocks that made up the entrance and lurched onward a bit. He could now see a small cone of the inside of the cavern.

 _Hmm… Cozy and pleasant,_ he thought, still advancing. The place was clearly a mine, but judging from the complete absence of any ore veins it was equally clearly a mistake. After the death of one of their biggest entrepreneur, the miners of Dawnstar had started digging everywhere. They had built pits and quarries, but very few of them actually found something. That was close enough to the city to be one of those failed excavations. Wooden planks were still holding the ceiling. There was also an abandoned pickaxe and an unlit lantern by the side of a big chuck of ploughed stone. The ashes of a fire were still in a corner. There was also a weapon rack against the wall on the opposite side of the entrance. It was empty.

However, the things that immediately caught the Dragonborn's eye was the grim figure standing in the darkness.

 _A male Altmer. How interesting._ The vampire was looking away from the entry, but still facing its general direction. In the dark it was quite hard to make out his facial traits, but the yellowish tint of the complexion was rather evident. Still, it looked unnaturally pale. The particular thing about that vampire was the absence of the horrific deformities in his face. If not for the eyes, which were glowing weakly, he could have been any normal mortal. _Something's up here. It's not normal,_ the Dragonborn thought.

The lean body of the tall undead was clad in armor, a kind of armor the Dragonborn had never seen. All the vampires he had seen wore a suit and bracers of red leather with a black shirt of cloth underneath. This one was different. The chestpiece was of reinforced on the torso with a layer of steel and so were the bracers. A short cape hung down from the shoulders, which were protected by small pauldrons. The neck also was covered by a leather gorget. Overall, it was of a way higher quality than the usual one. In Skyrim, the status of a person could frequently be worked out by what he or she wore. If that rule still applied it meant he was facing a person of great importance and possibly great power.

 _Now… How do I approach this?_ the Dovahkiin wondered. _Bow and arrow seems too risky; I won't be able to aim perfectly in the dark. If I walk in, he could see me. Still… I don't see any weapons on him. Maybe he has a dagger, or he could be a mage. Odd._ There was definitely some mystery surrounding that creature, which made every tactic possibly dangerous. _If he was a normal enemy I could turn myself invisible and slice his throat, but if he's a mage he could sense the magicka being altered near him._ No matter what, all things had some degree of danger involved. _I'll go back to the basics and see how they work out._

He lurked onward.

The vampire was looking away from the entrance. His gaze seemed to be fixed on specific spot on the wall, as if he was hallucinating. The glow in his eyes made it difficult to guess which way his pupils were turned. He was way too still for the Dragonborn's taste. He was either a bit hectic or was playing some evil game. The Dovahkiin assumed it was the second, just to be sure nothing went worse than planned. He was fairly confident in his ability to move unseen and unheard, but not if the vampire had seen him moving from the start.

A step after the other. He lurked onward still. He was so close he could notice him not breathing. That particular stillness in the body and face was unique among the undead, which had no conditioned nor spontaneous muscle movements that weren't strictly bonded to the survival instinct of the creature.

He was close enough. It was time. It all happened really quickly.

The Dragonborn rose slightly and dashed forward. He extended the dagger right beside his enemy's body and then adjusted the route, aiming at the exposed part of chest near the left armpit. The vampire's eyes lit up suddenly, sparkling of a nightmarish yellow light. The edge of the blade reached the leather before the creature could do any significant movement, except for initiating a jump to the right. The weapon pierced the leather with ease and sank briefly in the dead flesh, cutting it clearly and without much effort. It should have hit the heart.

The vampire ignored the wound and completed the unnatural leap. He now stood in the middle of the hollow.

The Dragonborn quickly sheathed the dagger back in its place, grabbing the longsword with one hand and focusing a small stream of magicka in his other hand. When he released the small stream of ethereal energy a small orb flew across the room, stopping near the ceiling and brightening up the entire cavern. He gripped the longsword with both hands and looked at the vampire.

'You'll explain how you managed that later.'

The vampire didn't seem to be in the same mood. He looked at the bleeding gash and growled, showing his long fangs.

'Die, mortal! I'll gladly feast on your remains!'

 _You wouldn't like that…_ thought the Dragonborn. _Regardless, this is how it begins._

With the Magelight hanging overhead and casting its cool, colorless light on the ground it was way easier for the Dovahkiin to see his enemy. The Altmer's face and body were truly well preserved for a vampire. His mouth was still stained with the blood of the huntsman lying on the road. It had surely been him, but that didn't explain how he managed to fly away. There were still some questions to answer, but that wasn't the time.

The Dragonborn darted towards the vampire, twirling his blade in a flurry of strikes that compelled his enemy to fall back. He hadn't drawn any kind of dagger from his belt or boot, while instead a weak purple light had indeed sparkled in his hands. He was a mage, and the Dovahkiin knew how to fight one. Even the most experienced of sorcerers had to focus away from the material world to channel the magicka into his spells, and that usually caused the movements of the body to halt. For the Altmer, stopping meant dying to one of the many slashes the Dragonborn was drawing in the air.

A sideward slash, then an uppercut. The vampire managed to slip through the two only thanks to its enhanced reflexes and nimbleness. _He's stronger, quicker and smarter than me,_ the Dragonborn thought. He readjusted, hinging on his left foot and redirecting the sweep he had already initiated. The vampire avoided it somehow. He now had the time to cast some spells.

Different lights blinked in his hands. In his left hand glowed a red light, while a purple blaze flashed in his right. He raised the left one and pointed it in the direction of the Dovahkiin. A vermillion haze of dark magic spewed forth, but impacted and dispersed as it touched the shimmering ward the Dragonborn had summoned from his own left hand. The vampire was gathering the energy for a nastier spell in his right palm, but his adversary gave the creature something else to worry about as he thrust the longsword towards the vampire's heart with the other hand.

The bloodsucker had to backtrack again with a bounce. The Dragonborn whirled his blade around him, channeling the magicka through the sword and making it flare with scorching flames that drew burning circles wherever the weapon was swung. The heat seemed to be enough to make the vampire think twice before engaging again. He kept backpedaling, but he couldn't do it forever.

The Dovahkiin noticed that the wound was slowing down the creature. The Altmer kept his elbow very close to the bleeding wound and was bent slightly towards that side.

No room for rash actions, but the fight could have been over very soon.

Gripping the longsword with one hand, the Dragonborn shaped the magicka that was rushing through him and gave it the form of roaring flames. They were brimming with energy when they materialized from his armored palm. The fire touched the ground, but the force stored in it kept it alive and sizzling. In a matter of seconds, a wall of flames had closed off one of the escape routes of the vampire, who had no choice but backtrack towards the wall. He stopped for a moment, bringing a hand close to his chest. A frosty spurt burst from his palm, but the Dragonborn had seen it coming and sidestepped it with little effort. He grasped the grip of the longsword with both hands and drew a wide downward sweep. The edges of the blade blazed just as the tip of the blade touched vampire's thigh, which was protected by a thin layer of leather. The armor cracked and burned, while the skin got first lacerated and then incinerated.

The creature reeled. Then, it bent forward, grasping his stomach almost as if it was about to vomit. The Dragonborn stopped his slice mid-swing and vaulted back, unsure of what to expect. _What kind of new hex is this?_ he wondered, leaning on his hand and getting back up.

The vampire coughed and bent even more. He was grasping his lower torso with his clawed hands very hard, leaving marks on the metal of the cuirass. He curved his knees, almost losing his balance. A grim mist was bursting out of the body, slowly shrouding it completely. Dark pulses of energy were coming from the dead flesh. Then, when he had crooked even more, his limbs seemed to close together and reopen in a spurt of black mist and blood.

The Dragonborn turned away, hit by a splatter. He heard a repulsive scream coming from where the vampire stood a moment before.

He turned, and gazed at the monstrosity.

The beast was a foot higher than him and loomed over menacingly. It was hairless and grey. It was humanoid, but the head was distorted horrifically; the cheeks were sunken, the face scrawny and gaunt, with the skin strained over the bones. The wide forehead, huge pointed ears and the thick and flattened nose bordered the demonic and bloodshot eyes. Large hands with long claws at the end of the digits hung by the side of the monster at the extremity of the skinny but muscular arms. A large golden plate decorated the upper chest and an ornate belt decked the abdomen. Out of the back of the monster came out a pair of bat-like wings. The creature wasn't beating them, but still floated in the air thanks to some kind of dark magic. The Dragonborn noticed it by looking at its feet, which were a few inches above the ground and looked rather odd. They were broad, webbed and clawed. Like the tracks on the road.

 _Well, well… Enigma solved. We found the mystery murderer. Now to defeat it, which looks to be way more difficult._ Dark magic pulsed around the creature, confirming his fairly straightforward intuition. The Dragonborn took a little more time to analyze the beast, trying to deduct information that could have been of use to defeat it. He first observed the gouge on the left side of the torso. _The wound is there and so is the burnt graze on the thigh, so this is still the vampire I fought before. Just in a different form. I've never seen a transformation like this, but it seems to function like the one of a werewolf, aside from the fact that it seems to be under the full control of the cursed one. That could mean some characteristics of the vampire still remained in his other form. Judging from the energy twisting in his hands, he uses magic even in this other shape. Fine, let's see what our dear monster does…_

The monster did nothing, for the time being. However, a quiet shriek came from above and two bats dove down towards the face of the Dragonborn. He dodged one, but the other clutched his small claws on his eyebrow. He ripped it away from his face, closed the armored fist and squeezed the small animal, making it burst with a spray of black blood.

More hisses. Three other bats came down from nowhere, trying to close their tiny fangs on the Dovahkiin's flesh. _Cursed little things…_ he thought, putting the bloodied gauntlet in front of his face to hinder their attacks. The animals were smart though, and one of them pinned itself on his higher neck, which was exposed. He tried to smack it away, but as soon as he did two more swooped down from the ceiling and attempted to slip into his hood and bite him. He felt their little claws scratching his skin.

An insignificant spark of frustration and wrath crossed his mind. It was enough.

His skin started to get hotter and hotter. The magicka wasn't being altered, all the power that was being drawn was contained in his blood alone. _Dunmer, brothers in blood, Ancestors… Come to me!_

His epidermis ignited instantly.

A flame gust burst from his body. With low shrieks of pain, the bats that were attacking him turned into flames and then cinders. The transformed vampire, which had gotten closer, growled gutturally and backed off. After the first spout, the flames surrounding the Dragonborn reduced in size and just permeated his skin, at times flaring in longer gushes of red-hot blazes. The fire flashed underneath his armor. The Dunmer looked at the vampire, and even that monstrous face showed some uncertainty in the face of such bringer of inferno staring right into his eyes.

Now it was the right time to strike. The nasty creature hurled a red orb of dark energies that exploded on the ground, but not before the Dovahkiin could perform a pirouette and get out of the way. He closed in still on the monster. The longsword flared with hellfire once again, spewing out all the power the Dragonborn had channeled through it. The swings left traces of smoke and vapor as they got closer and closer. He whirled the blade towards the creature, which avoided the hit. The next slice, however, was too fast to be dodged, even with the supernatural reflexes of the vampire. The burning blade barely grazed the monster's skin, but it was enough to leave a thin, long cut with scorched edges.

The monster screamed.

The Dovahkiin chained the slice into a wide sweep, which would have also hit wherever the vampire might have decided to avoid. But as the blade drew closer, the creature seemed to become more and more immaterial. A swarm of bats came down from the ceiling and closed on the beast's frame and carried it away. The Dragonborn locked every muscle up tight and stopped the sweep, driving it down and twirling the blade into a more comfortable position, while he looked around in search of the creature. It wouldn't have been hard, the Magelight was still fixed to the ceiling and gave off plenty of light.

However, the Dunmer could do nothing when a great force lifted him into the air. He managed to hold the longsword in his hands. He had turned just in time to see the monster extend an arm in his direction. An orange light had sparkled in his hands, and that had took him into the air. He was prepared for something, but that had come as complete surprise. No human mage was strong enough to lift a human in full armor in the air using telekinesis.

The Dragonborn felt the magic shift, change a little. The spell, which was holding him in the air for the moment, pulled him closer to the vampire. It was quick and sudden, he would have reached the monster in a matter of less than a couple of seconds. He thought of something, but the flames that had shrouded him had waned quickly when he had regained complete control over the fight and his mind. With his wrath gone, there was nothing left to fuel the fire. He lost the grip on the longsword, which fell to the ground with a grim ringing. The dagger was still on his side, but he was too disoriented by the movement to reliably grab that. Besides, he would have needed to do something before the spell brought him close to the beast. There was only one way.

He focused as much as the current condition allowed him, sensing the magic that was dragging him closer to the monster. He followed the stream, retracing it back to the wielder of the hex. He twisted and turned the magicka in a way that it acquired the shape of a disruption. An interference. He let the ethereal force go, and guided it through the flow of his enemy's spell. When the tap touched the hand of the vampire, the magicka curled up and flowed out, draining the last energies from the telekinesis incantation.

The Dragonborn fell on the ground.

His vision was blurred. His head had hit the ground. Not powerfully, but strongly enough to make his senses rather unclear. The cold bright of the Magelight appeared faint and vague, the outlines of the rocks in front of him shimmered and melded together in a confused disorder. He had fallen on his back, and his hood had come loose. The long hair had dispersed behind his head, on the rocks. He was utterly disoriented. He couldn't even tell where the entrance of the cavern was, except for the fact that it wasn't in front of him. And if he didn't know where the entrance was, let alone the sword. He had no clue of where it was. He was feeling a strange tingling sensation in all his limbs, which weren't exactly responsive at the moment. There was a more pressing matter however, something that bothered him way more than wilted arms and legs or his blurry sight: the vampire was nowhere to be seen.

He managed to raise his left arm high enough to lean on the forearm and try to get up from the ground. He straightened his arm and held himself up using both fists and, after a bit of effort, the knees too. He propped up slow but determined, as fast as his muscles allowed him. Still, the voice of realism in his head told him it was all for nothing and he agreed. Even as he succeeded in standing on two feet he knew the monster was lurking very near to him, probably waiting for the best opportunity to strike. The hand of the Dragonborn reached for the dagger mechanically, while the other heated up with magical flames that were ready to spurt out of his palm.

His vision was still somewhat fuzzy when a dark shadow sprinted towards him at incredible speed. It moved to him at once, and as it got closer the Dunmer managed to make out the features of the monster, which was stretching his long claws in his direction and had opened his fanged mouth.

It wasn't the first time a vampire sank its teeth into his neck, but that time was by far the worst one. The canine teeth of that creature were longer and sharper than the ones of a regular vampire. The dreadful sensation of the blood surging faster in his veins, being drained by the thing pinned to his neck, was unsettling to say the very least. The monster was closing its teeth, almost as if trying to rip the flesh away, and incised the skin deeply and painfully. A hiss of pain and anger escaped from his mouth.

But then, suddenly, the monster growled strangely. It seemed to the Dragonborn it was a snarl of surprise or shock. The vampire pulled the fangs out of his flesh, spitting some blood as it backed away. It kept fumbling furiously, at times spattering more of the red liquid.

The Dragonborn fell on his knees, a bitter sneer playing out on his lips. _Dragon blood isn't good for you, overgrown leeches_. Now, in addiction to the blurry vision, he had also a headache because of the blood loss. Despite the short time, the vampire had sucked a great quantity of it. Yet, he had an advantage. The monster was still lashing out desperately, firing ominous glares at the Dragonborn. Its flesh was decaying, deteriorating, its face becoming gaunter still. Spasms shook the creature's entire body. The black mist that had hazed it during the transformation was oozing out of his skin and the dark magic coming in pulses from its from was slowly waning.

Time and space alike twisted and warped as the Dragonborn sang a thundering note in the song of the universe.

'Fus Ro Dah!'

The Thu'um struck the creature and hurled it backwards, carrying its limp figure to the very end of the cavern. The monster hit the wall and collapsed to the ground, leaving a splatter of black blood on the wall. The vampire tried to pick himself up, using what dark energy hadn't left his body to pull himself straight a little bit. The Dragonborn, ready for a last stand, rose and grabbed his dagger.

He dashed forward, stoically ignoring the pain, and aimed the hit. The monster struggled to react fast enough, but it was still unable to do anything when the dagger sank deeply into its neck. With a turning of the wrist, the Dovahkiin rotated the blade and severed the head from the shoulders.

A black pool spread where the lifeless figure of the vampire lied.

An odd silence fell suddenly in the cave. The screeches of the creature dying were the last noises to be heard. The wind howling outside was distant and easily forgot, especially to the ears of the Dragonborn. He felt the cool and calm air on his skin and in his nose. The cold seeped into his mouth and his lungs as he breathed, and he was breathing very heavily. The headache wasn't going to get any better, not until the blood had regenerated.

The Dunmer paced on the rim of the blood puddle repeatedly and slowly, going back and forth. He put on the hood again and tucked his hair inside, trying to use them as covering for the fang marks on his neck. His knees trembled. He calmly reached for his black leather pouches and took out a small flask. He held it delicately by the neck and used the pointed ends of the armored fingers to uncork it. He drank its full content and plugged the stopper back in before stuffing the bottle into the pocket.

 _Fine… That should prevent me from turning into one of them_ , he thought. _Now, I need to burn this poor sod. Then it would be good to drop by in Winterhold. I bet my fellow mages might find my adventure quite interesting. And I suppose Colette could take a look at my injuries, too._

* * *

A/N: For all you _The Assassin_ readers who wanted the Godsplitter's return, I hope it's everything you hoped for. You'll find him changed, especially as we delve further into the story, but let's not get ahead of ourselves, shall we?


	2. Chapter I: A New Threat Looms

Chapter I: _A New Threat Looms_

* * *

The wounds ached. Way less than a few hours before, but they still ached. A thin layer of fresh skin was stretched over the holes in his neck. The small grazes on the internal parts of the gouge, probably the mark of a saw-edged part of the vampire's canine tooth, had healed decently. The medical bandage Colette had put over the wound was infused with powerful regenerating magic. He could have felt it even without her telling him. He could sense the energy contained in the object restoring the tissues and soothing the pain almost as much as he could sense its rough surface against his skin. He noticed that it wasn't in the exact same position as before. Someone had moved it while he was asleep.

The Dragonborn lay on the bed, motionlessly. He kept his eyes closed, focusing on his other senses. He could sense the chilly air, which confirmed Colette had obeyed his request to open the windows. The wind whispered softly as it came in. He heard her moving around his bed, where he was resting. She was pacing nervously. He even smelt something peculiar. Aside from the smell of fresh air coming from outside, the air carried the scent of perfume. It was Colette's, no doubt. She had taken the time to put it on, even if he had arrived in the heart of night. The Dragonborn often failed to understand the respect the mages had for him, a respect that frequently bordered with devotion.

'So…' she said, hesitating. 'He… transformed?'

'Yes.'

'Are you absolutely certain?'

'I'm quite positive I know what I've seen, Colette,' he answered, coldly. 'Have you sent for Phinis?'

He could almost hear her bite her lower lip. 'I've taken the liberty to call for everyone here, in the Archmage's Quarters. This is a matter of great importance.'

 _Figures…_ thought the Dragonborn with a faint sigh. He didn't answer her. His silence would have to be enough. He opened his eyes, batting his eyelids. The cool light of the Archmage's Quarters was bright and piercing and required some getting used to. The black ceiling shimmered in the glow of the magical lights, reflecting with iridescent gleams. He liked the place. He spent the vast majority of his time in the College up in that room; locked in, when he could. The mages rarely left him alone, but there were times when he needed some solitude. When he said so, nobody dared to even knock on his door.

The Dragonborn slowly bent his head towards Colette. She was wearing her usual dark tunic, college gloves and boots. Her face was a bit tense. She was wearing a light makeup, an attempt to hide the first wrinkles and lines that marked her aging face. The livid rings under her eyes made it clear that she hadn't slept in a while. He felt her eyes directly fixed in his, and this annoyed him. He had his face exposed, which he normally hadn't, and she could to stare right in his eyes.

He slowly tilted his head. 'You know nothing of these transforming vampires, I assume,' he said, slowly but steadily raising his shoulders from the cushion.

'I have heard stories,' she said, as if apologizing. 'Nothing objective. It's not my field of expertise.'

'Isn't it?' A sarcastic grimace briefly and imperceivably played out on his lips. 'You of all people should be the one with some knowledge. It is your magic that is able to fend off the undead.'

'Restoration merely focuses on protection,' she said firmly. 'My arts include the supreme affirmation of life, which must also include the banishing of the things which are not living. We evict the evils, we don't delve in the machinations that allow them to endure death. That is matter for necromancers, and I'm certainly not one.'

'Long story short, you can't help me.'

A strange kind of uneasiness seemed to mark her features for a moment. It lingered for a while, until her eyes stopped their crazed movement and fixed again in the pupils of the Dragonborn. 'I have heard rumors, if that can help. The Frozen Heart has its rooms full with students that want to apply to the College, specifically to study Restoration magic. I was understandably surprised at first, not many want to learn the things I teach. When asked, they told us that they wanted to learn the charms that might protect them from the undead. Unfortunately, only one such person has been able to surpass the entrance test and make it here. He had a very interesting story to tell.'

'Go on.'

'He comes from the marshes of Morthal. He's just a peasant, but he had a magical talent within him that could not be ignored. He arrived here not two weeks ago, asking to enter the College to learn Restoration magic. He passed the tests, and was taken in. The first day, I asked what had led him to Winterhold and how come he wanted to learn restoration. He told me that vampires were rumored to be prowling about near the city.'

'Morthal has had vampire problems in the recent past. This doesn't seem new.'

'No, it is new. The vampires he described were different. It seemed to us they were more powerful. He didn't have much to say beside stories, everyone who has had a direct encounter with the fiends has died. The villagers were defenseless. The three soldiers that had been stationed nearby were ambushed one night and culled down with extreme cruelty. The boy took it upon himself to come here, seeking our aid. I'm currently teaching him what I can, as fast as I can. The quicker he returns to his village, the better. When you mentioned this strange vampire, I immediately thought of the ones that boy told me about. Some things seem to match, while others don't. He never mentioned anything that could look like a transformation of any kind. That's all I know.'

'All information is good information right now, since we have none. Help me stand,' he said, holding out his hand to her. She quickly grabbed the proffered palm and squeezed it gently. He could rise on his own, but he might have been destabilized by sudden headaches or stings of pain.

The Dragonborn slowly put his feet on the ground, sitting on the bed. He then rose to his feet, furrowing his eyebrows slightly. He didn't move for a moment, testing his balance. Once he was sure of his feet, he let go of Colette's hand and brought both his hands to his head. He grabbed the rim of the hood and lowered it on his forehead. He moved a step forward, feeling for the responsiveness of his body. His eyesight was slightly less efficient than normal, but it was because of the intense light. His other senses worked perfectly. He breathed in, sensing his whole body piece by piece; from the aching neck down to the rested legs. He touched the bandage on his neck, pressing slightly on a spot where it had lost its tension.

Lastly, he focused and checked his mind. Clear, as the sky in a sunny day of winter. Winter. He felt that season as very representative of his normal state of mind. A cold impenetrable, a lucidity that he used both as a measure for what surrounded him and as one of his deadlier weapons. There were questions that needed to be answered, but he didn't let that interfere with his utter calm. The events that had occurred four days before in the caverns were still present and he had spent the vast majority of his time analyzing the battle piece by piece. He pondered, asking himself what had gone wrong. The frightening answer was that he hadn't made any mistake whatsoever. And yet, he didn't let that influence himself. It was a fact, an objective element. Nothing that should hold sway over his temper.

He casted a quick glance at the table, where he had laid his equipment. He lingered for a moment on the longsword, remembering what he had seen before arriving in Winterhold. Upon inspection, he had noticed that the blade didn't need any tempering. Since it was forged following specific rituals and spells it rarely, if ever, required maintenance, but a supernatural enemy could chip the edge. With the vampire it hadn't been the case. He recalled the nature of the fight, and it hadn't been a duel or any kind of normal struggle. It had been a fight that had ensued at breakneck speed, where the nimbler and the smarter of the two had prevailed.

He cast away those thoughts. He would have the time to ponder that analysis later. He turned towards Colette, who was silently waiting for him to say something. 'When will the others arrive?'

'They should be here any moment now, Archmage.'

The Dragonborn turned and kept walking slowly in the back of the room. He leaned against the metal partition, following it to the main area of the hall. There was a little garden in the middle of the chamber which contained a lot of his favorite plants. He had also asked to build a small pathway adjacent to the partition which led to a seat he had forged himself in pure malachite. It was a transparent throne, a true masterwork. It was probably bound to remain there and be used by all other Archmages after him. He followed the marble pathway leading to the seat. He smelt the fragrance of the flowers. From sweet-scented Dragon's Tongue to the sharp aroma of the Deathbell. The patch was a cluster of colors, all those of a bright rainbow and more. He stroke the branches of the growing Canis Root, testing their hardiness. _Not ready yet,_ he thought, pushing them down and seeing how flexible they still were. The small patch of Namira's Root was sprouting already, while the sample of Jarrin Root hadn't struck root. He would try once more. He sat upon the glass seat, laying his back on the smooth backrest and placing both his arms on the sinuous armrests, forged appositely to be winding and flowing but also to be perfectly shaped to enfold the forearms of the Dovahkiin.

Colette looked at him through the fissured of the partition. The snaky shapes of the metal left numerous holes and gaps, technically designed to limit the amount of light that would reach the bed. 'Anything I can do for you, Archmage?' she asked, coming around the partition and moving towards the door, where she could face him.

'No,' he said, without moving a single muscle.

The sorceress lowered her head a little bit and continued along. She reached a chair near the wooden door that led to the stairs. She too sat, resting her hands on her knees without uttering another word. She was particular among the mages the Dragonborn saw everyday he spent at the College. Most of them constantly tried to seek his advice or gain his favor, sometimes in shrewd and very creative ways. Colette was different. He treated her with no compassion and no notice of her slight paranoia; ironically, being treated as perfectly normal made her feel better. The difference was that she was perfectly content of the situation she was in and didn't try to earn the favor of the Archmage. Her humility, thought instinctive and thus not admirable in an ethical way, was pleasant. She wasn't like the others, who had stopped forcing the Archmage's hand only when they had understood who they were dealing with. Those were the people he dealt with while in the College. The same people whose voices and footsteps he heard, coming from beyond the door.

The Dragonborn sighed deeply. He listened to the indistinct noises, failing to understand anything of what they were saying. The door was built to partially isolate the chamber from noises coming from the stairs. Its two wings were freshly polished. They had recently been coated with black paint and the sign of the College drawn over using a faded blue. When they opened, the circular symbol split precisely in two, similarly to the iron gate which gave access to the main yard. The voices came closer. He heard the different intonations now, as if the words were music. It hadn't been long since his last visit. For his standards, at least. He wasn't planning to drop by at the College before encountering the vampire. It had been necessity more than anything, but now he was content with how the events had turned out. He needed advice on the vampires and the College might have been the absolute best place to start the investigation. He cracked his neck.

Three knocks on the thick wood. 'Come in,' the Dragonborn said.

The two wings of the portal opened together, symmetrically. The movement of one was bound to the other by a magical link which was as difficult as it was simple. As the wings of the door unsealed and drew away from one another, the Dovahkiin started to make out the faces of those who were entering his chamber. The heads of Phinis and Tolfdir were half hidden by Faralda's shoulders, while Drevis walked his separate way to the right of the small group. A bit behind, secluded and as out of sight as he managed, walked Enthir. Nobody had formally invited him there, it had been the Dragonborn that had summoned him with a secret message. Surely nobody was happy to have him as a tagalong, but he was under the Archmage's protection.

The wizards lined up with Colette, occupying the two remaining chairs near the entrance. The others remained standing. It was Tolfdir, as was his role of Master Wizard, that came a little forwards and spoke for all of them. 'Archmage, we have heard of your tale and of your wounds,' he said, in his feeble and gruff voice. 'We were so worried. Seeing you awaken and well is indeed a welcome sight for sore eyes.' His tired eyes were pointed at the Dragonborn. There was deference in them. The elderly wizard was a cordial person, one that sticks to traditions but that is also able to lay them down for a moment when the situation requires it. Although forgetful and most certainly not a prodigy, his humble wisdom always brought some much needed advice to the Dovahkiin. 'Of course,' the old man continued, 'Colette has told us of your injuries, and that you require information. However, we were wondering what sort of information you might need.'

'Regarding the transformation,' the Dragonborn said from his translucid throne. 'I assume Colette has also told you what she knew about my struggle with the vampire. The fiend transformed halfway through the fight, assuming a form I have never known even existed. It was humanoid, but bigger and gaunter, with grey skin and bat-like features. Does anybody of you know what this is, or where does it come from?'

There was a moment of silence. The mages exchanged worried glances, whispered among themselves and changed facial expression several times, depending on what they were told or asked. The Dragonborn relaxed completely and inclined back on the seat, giving them some time to organize the few good ideas they might have. He saw Phinis talking to Colette and Tolfdir to Faralda. Drevis intervened at one point, only to receive a glare from the latter. He often said things that were heavily out of context. The Dovahkiin followed their movements intently, tracking the important ideas as they were told among the small group. Something Phinis said seemed to raise quite a bit of approval, even from the usually hypercritical Faralda. They seemed to be putting together something constructive.

At last, Phinis nodded to Tolfdir and Colette and spoke. 'We don't know much about what you ask for, Archmage. We're incredibly sorry.' His gaze lowered slightly, maybe fearful of the Archmage's judgment. The Dragonborn checked his every motion, but he wasn't doing anything that might betray his thoughts. The Conjurer's fear was instinctive, induced by habit. He kept listening. 'Our expert on undead and vampirism, Falion, has fled to Morthal some time ago. If you'd like we could contact him. That, however, would take time.'

'Time that we don't have,' the Dragonborn said. 'Let's divide the problem into smaller issues and see if we can solve some of them. Phinis, Colette, I have a question for you. I have noticed an odd thing about the vampire I fought. His face was almost perfectly intact, while others I've met have theirs completely disfigured. Does this mean anything?'

'I remember what Falion told me about the different branches and clans of the vampires,' Phinis said. 'Some people think all vampires are the same, but that is not true. There are different bloodlines, and they each carry specific characteristics. I vaguely recall the Cyrodilic lineage having untouched faces, except for the eyes. There are things that match with what you have told us, too. This would need more research, though.'

The Dragonborn nodded slowly and turned towards Colette. 'You? Do you know anything?'

'About the faces, I remember having studied a branch of diseases that included Sanguinare Vampiris among them. They are a very particular type of illness, since they are created with magic and are not part of the natural order. Specifically, Sanguinare Vampiris disfigures the faces in a horrific way, at times beyond recognition. There are, of course, theories as to why it happens. Some think the body reacts to the disease by trying to self-disintegrate, but vampirism quickly overthrows that process. As soon as it takes over, the biological functions of the body are erased and replaced with magic-powered ones.'

'This would match what we know about advanced necromancy,' Phinis said. 'The being that becomes a vampire effectively dies. The body can be considered a walking corpse, and that is confirmed by the fact that the magical drills that detect life forms don't interact with vampires in any way. Something similar happens to the soul, which isn't directly removed from the body but is enfeebled. It's not whole anymore. I don't know if it simply deteriorates or if it is absorbed by another plane of existence, but it doesn't change the effect it has on our plane.'

The Dragonborn merely nodded in silence. He was deep in thought. That knowledge was important, but most importantly he was now beginning to see a path to follow. If the distortion in appearance was the work of a disease and not related to vampirism directly, it just might be that the vampire he had fought belonged to a particular bloodline. He knew very little about those since they had never posed a threat in his intense and yet brief living in Skyrim. However, since he hadn't been able to learn anything from the fiend, they were in the dark. The key to the mystery was obviously the transformation, since it wasn't common even among the most ancient vampires. The vampire he had fought had a secret, perhaps his motive or the identity of his superior, if there were any. The options were many, the ways to choose the right one were few. Very few, even. There surely were people looking into that same problem in that very moment somewhere else in the province, but the matter was urgent and not everyone had the starting point they had. They didn't have the time to contact anyone that was too far away from the College. The Dragonborn knew that what they knew would need to be sufficient for at least the following step in the search. He drummed the armrest with his fingers, lost in the weave of his reflection.

The mages all waited in religious silence. He eyed them a couple of times, without them noticing. Some were gazing directly at him, awaiting for a verdict, while others were going on their own tangent and looked concentrated on their own thoughts. Phinis stared fixedly at the wall behind the Archmage while Colette looked down, a frown on her face. Enthir, on the other hand, had a serious but somewhat heckling expression. The Dragonborn knew him and knew he had that face when he had something to say. This was good. Enthir always managed to gather enormous quantities of raw information, which he rarely succeeded in compiling in one organized point. The scattered news and rumors he had were valuable, but only when there was someone like the Dragonborn that had a keen, sharp mind that could synthesize everything into a unique, coherent system. There hadn't been a single time when he hadn't been able to make the right choice if given the sufficient data.

He exhaled, meditatively. The mages turned to him as he slowly raised his head. 'Those who have sessions will return at once to the Hall of the Elements,' he said, unhurriedly rising from the translucid throne. 'The ones who don't will come with me down in the Arcaneum, to help me gather more information on this new threat we're facing.'

'Yes, Archmage,' answered Tolfdir. He, Faralda and Drevis stood up, casting short glances at their colleagues. 'Come on,' the old wizard said, 'let's go back to our students.'

Three went out of the door while three more remained with the Dragonborn. Colette and Phinis stood up at once when the Dovahkiin moved the first steps in their direction, while Enthir didn't move from his place. He was leaning his shoulder against the wall, still with that conspirator smirk on his lips. The Archmage gave him a nod and turned at the other two. 'Colette, Phinis, the two of you go down in the Arcaneum and ask Urag for any kind of book that deals with vampires, even marginally. Enthir and I will join you in a few minutes.'

'Yes, Archmage.'

The two mages bowed slightly and walked away. The Dragonborn looked at them as they disappeared down in the spiral staircase, illumined by the faint bright of the magical lights. The door closed slowly behind them, sealing the chamber of the Archmage and the things that were about to be said. Ever since he had become the head of the College, Enthir had found it was easier to interact with him without raising suspicion, but they still had to be cautious. That was why they often closed themselves shut inside the room when they had to discuss something either private or related to their criminal underworld contacts. The transactions were the only thing that were left out, since they always took place in the Bosmer's quarters.

'So,' the Wood Elf said, mock-serious, 'if it isn't Azrael the Godkiller asking for my help.'

'Not the first time it happens,' he replied impassively. 'I don't have as much time to throw away like you do.'

'Good point, but I'd say to get down to business. I have some things that might interest you.'

'I should hope. Tell me, and be quick.'

He moved two steps in his direction. Enthir was a strange kind of Wood Elf, one that has abandoned his roots by still carries the trademarks of his people along with him. He was a firm mind and a stable person, an excellent negotiator and an even better agent. Physically, he wasn't that intimidating. He was just a fancy-dressed Bosmer with a turf of brown hair bending on his left temple. The other one was clean shaven. He wasn't much taller than five and a half feet, meaning the Dragonborn towered over him in all his unusual height. That unimpressive and unassuming appearance had served him well over the years however. He had got away from bad things thanks to his generic and forgettable traits. Appearances often deceive though, and Enthir was one evident example.

'Well,' he began, 'recently my finances have increased by a meager percentage. I was doing the counts just a week ago, and there was something that didn't fit the normal pattern. I looked at what price my contact bought the pieces he wanted, and there was indeed something strange. The price of silver. And, guess what, the price of gold lowered a tiny bit as well. That was why the increase had been so small. Now, I've tried to track down the reason of these changes. I checked the charts of the prices and the quantities of metal mined last month, but there weren't any changes. There have been no decreases in production in the Reach and there haven't been any Forsworn raids either. That means there wasn't any variation in the dug quantity of metal. The fluctuation was just in the price alone, not reflected in the amount that goes around in the province's market. You know what that means?'

'People are buying more silver than gold.'

'Precisely. I was understandably intrigued by such development, and I saw a chance for profit. I have even written a missive to our mutual friends of the Guild to inform them. If they want to speculate, they should do it on silver. Specifically, silver jewelry and charms. They have become insanely popular lately. Before this morning, I wasn't sure of why this was the case. Now though, I have the missing link. The vampires. Furthermore, I have recently received word of a notice that has been found in many cities and towns throughout Skyrim. It advised to use silver to repel the vampires that attacked the cities. It was also written that silver jewels worn on the body reduce the effect of the dark forces the bloodsuckers are able to call upon to confound our minds. And also, just think, Tolfdir was complaining about something the other day. With Arniel gone, there isn't anyone left that's able to enchant items at the prestigious of when he was still with us. There had been a particular intense wave of requests, interested in one protective charm in particular. Can you guess, mastermind?'

'Protection from diseases.'

'Bullseye. Aside from a few, they were all that. Every single one, I almost couldn't believe it. Silver rings and necklaces, all enchanted with charms that decreased the chances of catching a disease. I considered for a moment that maybe these honor bound northerners had started to get more… intimate, all of a sudden.'

The Dragonborn exhaled mockingly. 'Brilliant conjecture. As always.'

The Wood Elf gave an engaging laugh, looking at him sideways. 'Come on, Azrael, you could indulge your natural need to laugh, sometimes.' He often went on that tangent, making sure he didn't annoy his boss too much.

'Not at your bad jokes,' the Archmage answered emotionlessly. 'Back to the topic at hand now. I have some questions. For instance, were there any inconstancies in the trade routes? Something that might hint at the distribution of these products?'

'There are, I think. It's easy to trace those sort of things, now that the common merchants are still waiting for the climate to get warmer. There are approximately twenty caravans going around. They had ventured from Solitude, passing through Morthal, Whiterun and Dawnstar before arriving here in Winterhold. But when they arrived here, the stock of silver jewels was almost completely sold out. The few pieces that remained were of low quality but very expensive.'

'Low quality?'

'Yes, I'm sure. The manufacture wasn't good. Does that mean anything?'

'A vampire poses a much greater threat than what the buyers seem to think or what that notice you mentioned says. It can't be fended off with a silver talisman imbued with a charm to avoid catching the Sanguinare Vampiris. The people who bought those are two things: wealthy and superstitious.'

'And explanation, please?'

'We know they're wealthy because they bought refined jewelry when any kind of silver would have sufficed. If I had to guess, I'd say they were all retailed in Whiterun, given to the rich merchant families. Had they been middle or lower class, they would have acquired lower quality products. Likewise, we know they are superstitious from the simple fact that they purchased those. A simple necklace isn't going to save your life. They assume all a vampire wants to do is jinx them into submission and infect them afterwards. That's erroneous. A senseless misconception. A vampire is much more likely to kill you than enslave you. If they really wanted solid protection against them, they would need to carry a scroll with any kind of fire spell infused in it. Even then, it may not be enough.'

'Okay… Now I'm following along.'

'Good. Now, have you heard of anyone spreading word of the vampire menace around? Aside from that notice'

'Yes, I have.' The Bosmer had a thoughtful frown on his face. The Dragonborn looked at him and knew he was putting the pieces together. The scattered shards were falling into their place as their conversation continued. Enthir was concurrently telling him what he knew and connecting those same things into a unique system. 'Where are you getting at?'

Azrael brought his weight from one leg to the other. 'Generally, people buy something at an unfavorable price when they think they need the object. This increase in the price of silver sounds wrong. You confirmed my hypothesis. There are rumors running around, are there not? Bad news travel faster than the wind. These people are frightened. Someone is spreading madness, whether out of fear, sadism or the prospect material gain. The very person that hung that notice might be doing this to get rich off the fear of the wealthy.'

'So there's been a sort of disinformation about those big leeches, that's what you're saying.'

'Yes. Truthfully, I was hoping you had some more intelligence about that.'

'Well… Now that you mention it, there's another notice has been hanged on the notice board near the inn.' The Wood Elf stroke his turf, pursing his lips. 'It provides instructions in case of a vampire attack. A haven't paid too much attention to it, we members of the College have out own orders about them. I don't think they'd cross the bridge though, with all the magical defenses that can be activated from afar. Tolfdir will surely manipulate a couple of the magicka pools to warn us if any undead surpasses the set threshold. The town doesn't have much in the way of protection however. It doesn't even have walls.'

'You did ask the Jarl if he needed protection, as I had instructed?'

'Of course we did. That lout banished us, called us freaks. He said the vampires are our doing, that we should burn alongside them. Without his approval we can't act, and Winterhold is near defenseless at this point. The bloodsuckers have been confirmed to hunt in groups of three or four, five is the maximum I've heard of, so theoretically a group of town guards could overpower them.'

'You give those men more credit than they're due. They have no experience in fighting this kind of enemy and they aren't equipped appropriately. Even if they gave them all a silver weapon, I doubt it'd be enough. Vampires are fast, they could easily dodge every attack coming their way. A mage would be the obvious solution, but if that fool won't let a magic-user in his ranks I don't know what else to do.'

'The situation is quite dire.'

'More than you could know. A single vampire with his minions they could manage. However, if by chance any of the beasts like the one I fought makes its way to Winterhold, the town is doomed.'

Enthir smirked faintly and looked at the Dragonborn. There was a hint of challenge in his eyes. 'So,' he said, bending his head, 'how do we prevent that from happening?'

'We strike at the heart.' Azrael gazed at the void that lied beyond the window, the endless skies above the Sea of Ghosts. He brought back his eyes from the firmament and looked towards the Bosmer, elaborating on his brief and cryptic sentence. 'We find out who's behind this unusual hyperactivity and eliminate him or her. There will have to be no mercy. The equilibrium of the province may lie within our success. With a civil war on the brink of recommencing, we'll have to act quickly.'

The Bosmer smiled, this time without any humoristic purpose. 'Well, let us proceed to the Arcaneum then,' he said, pointing at the door with both hands.

The Dragonborn gave him a curt and silent nod. He turned back and walked up to the table where he'd left all of his equipment. He grabbed the smooth black cape and threw it over his shoulders. Then, over it, he put on the black leather buckle. He placed the quiver, the bow and the longsword in their respective places, attached to small hangers. They had all been forged appositely by him, and they were of a winding shape that made it impossible for his gear to lose its join. Lastly, he fit the dagger in his metal belt. He checked for the bandoliers and the pouches, and they were all there. The poisons were all at the ready, the potions too and the throwing knives as well. Once he had everything on him, there was little that could catch him unprepared. He had worn that set of armor for a few months now, and the placement of everything felt natural. He could find anything instinctively, without even thinking. His mind was best used in other ways.

He turned and walked back to the Wood Elf, who was patiently awaiting near the door. The wings of the portal started opening slowly, producing a strange hiss. It would take some seconds before any of them could comfortably walk through it. The two stood side by side, waiting. The Dragonborn cracked his stiff neck and caught a glimpse of the Bosmer looking his way. His gaze was thoughtful as it glazed over the Archmage's hidden face. 'You know, Azrael,' he said, 'I like you. I mean, you surely know it, but there are certain moments when I really think you're the best person I've ever met. You're not the funniest and you're certainly not the friendliest, but you're the best in other ways. You're elusive, shadowy, but when I see you or hear your voice I realized you drip charisma from every pore of your skin. It's impressive, really. There's something about you that stinks of perfection.'

'Why the sentimentalism?'

The Wood Elf laughed. The door was now half-opened and they both walked through it. Azrael saw the Bosmer pursing his lips, as if searching for the right words. The muscles of his face were relaxed. He wasn't forcing himself to say that. He rarely forced himself to say something. His eyes moved suddenly towards the Dragonborn after a while. 'Well, that's it,' he said as they turned into the spiral stairs. 'You're not just one that pretends to be above common mortals, I think you are above common mortals. Don't make me explain this. I'm a smuggler and a merchant dealing in dangerous materials, but certainly not a poet.' The weak lights illumined and darkened his face at intervals, long enough to render it difficult for the Dragonborn to have a clear read of any further facial expression. Enthir wasn't very intelligent, but he was shrewd. However, there were moments when he lay down his schemes and just told the truth, revealing a side of him very few people knew even existed.

Azrael thought for a moment over the words of the Elf. _My draconic side certainly agrees with you,_ he thought. Although in different ways, but he had been getting that comment a lot as of late. Most other people were waiting for the end of the winter to begin their activities, but not him. He had been active across the whole cold season. It had been very productive, and he had made many acquaintances and friends. All of them could have turned out to be useful when the spreading of his web in the warm seasons would inevitably begin. However, all those contacts of his had all noted one thing in particular about the Dragonborn. They had spoken their mind using different words, but the concept was always the same: Azrael lacked sensitivity. Even Enthir had said pretty much the same thing. Not as an accusation, but as a compliment, for a change.

But, as Enthir had said, the newly-appointed Archmage had charisma. In spite of his pitiless actions during his short but intense activity at the College, he was widely respected and loved. Even as the Bosmer and the Dunmer walked down the stairs and went past the entrance of the Hall of the Elements, the novices greeted him with enthusiasm and reverence. Their teachers didn't understand their distraction at first. Azrael observed how many of them were ready to tell them off, but as soon as they figured out or directly saw the cause of the interruption, they remained silent. Some even joined the group greeting. The Archmage didn't say anything. He replied with a silent nod.

'Just asking,' Enthir said as soon as they turned into the stairs leading down. 'What will we do after we've gathered some info on the matter?'

'Your guess is as good as mine. The possible courses of action are many and our options open. That's both a good and a bad thing. I need more evidence and more knowledge. Then we'll see.'

'That's what I meant, you know? You're so decisive, you always know what to do. No wonder they love you at the Guild.'

'Drop it,' Azrael said glacially, without even gracing the Elf with a glance. There was a time or everything, and there were times when he forbore from destroying sentimentality, but that wasn't one of those moments.

He opened the door to the Arcaneum. A light stronger than the one that lit the stairs reached his eyes as him and Enthir entered. The boots of the Dragonborn leaned soundlessly on the stone slabs that covered the entirety of the floor. The lobby held shelves stuffed to the brim with books, while the few empty spaces housed magical contractions and piles of sheets. Notes, studies, material that had been left there and many more things. A huge map of Tamriel was tacked to the wall in front of the door, its oak frame smooth and recently polished. Beneath that lied the notes of a new student that had taken a liking in cartography; he was apparently trying to piece together a map of Nirn, but was having difficulties doing so. Azrael had become aware of the fact in his previous visit, and he had sent for an expert that could help their student. No news on that end, but they said the pupil was happy enough with the prospect. On the wall that faced the South, there was a huge window that provided half of the light the place needed. The rest was provided by magically lit lamps and a few candles scattered around the library, at a safe distance from the books. The air inside was often stagnant and its smell wasn't pleasing, but at least it was dry. Had it been otherwise, the books wouldn't have survived long.

They stepped inside the main hall of the library. It was circular. The shape was first suggested by the small stone ring on the ceiling, from which originated twelve different ridges of stone that went across the ceiling and then bent down, half of them forming solid columns and the other half strong pillars. The central ring in the middle was an architectonic masterwork. Azrael was no architect, but he had traveled far enough to see different solutions to recurring problems that came up when building a hall of that size. One of the most difficult to solve was preventing the ceiling from collapsing, a problem the stone ring cracked entirely. It managed to discharge the vertical tension created by the weight of the roof by transforming it in horizontal tension, which was distributed to the twelve supports. Six of these were columns, which stood in a circle halfway between the wall and the center, creating a walkway on its outer part. The aisle was bordered by endless shelves, ledges and bookcases where all the knowledge Men and Mer had gathered over the eons was mustered. That was the reason Azrael had sent the mages down there. Every time he had come across something he didn't know, the Arcaneum had always answered his many and precise questions. The books held there were many and precious, a few even unique. The Dragonborn had the plan to gather even more. With the gathering of Shalidor's fragments already set in motion, the Arcaneum could have easily become the biggest archive in all of Nirn.

Urag gro-Shub, the librarian, shared and approved the Archmage's ambitious plan. He loved the Arcaneum and he loved his books. He had renounced everything else life had to offer to be there. Azrael's well-regarded the Orc. He was one of the few people inside that managed to be helpful without being annoying. Two traits that rarely went together. The Orsimer was standing near one of the bookcases, browsing the numerous tomes. Colette and Phinis were already working. The former sat in a chair in the middle of the hall, a split-level that was ten inches lower than the rest of the floor. She had a pile of five books in front of her, stacked on the round table. She held one in her hands and was reading keenly. The Dragonborn narrowed his eyes, trying to see. _Vampires of Vvardenfell,_ he read silently, _heavy reading. Useless I'd say, but who knows. Maybe she'll find something._ Phinis was reading something himself, a ragged volume that bore the title "Immortal Blood" carved in gold on the front cover. His balding head was marked by wrinkles of concentration. Neither of them said anything even as the two Elves entered. They were very focused on their reading.

'Urag,' Azrael called out. The Orc didn't react at first. He took the time to place the book he was consulting back in its place, carefully aligning it with the other tomes. Once that was done, he turned and spread his two fangs a little bit. It was the closest an Orc could get to a smile.

'Archmage,' he welcomed him. Azrael didn't answer back in any way and stopped a few feet away, waiting for him to continue. Urag was a reasonable person and coped excellently with the peremptory attitude of the Archmage. A trait Azrael liked even above his rudimentary smartness. 'I was told you're looking for information regarding vampires, is that it?'

'Yes.'

'We have eight files, twenty-two manuscripts and a small collection of notes on the matter. To my knowledge, nothing that specifically mentions transformation like the one you witnessed. I have already started examining Vampires of the Iliac Bay, but its accounts detail the influence of the disease which causes standard cases, which, as I've heard, isn't exactly what we're dealing with.'

'Spot on. Search the notes, instead. If there's any pattern that details vampire activity in the near past, try to follow it. Clear?'

'As daylight,' the Orc answered in his gruff, pleasant voice. 'The notes we have include hints gathered from the reports of the Vigilants of Stendarr. I was hoping they had encountered this issue, in their hunt of undead and Oblivion-spawns.'

'That's a good lead. Pursue it.'

The Orsimer returned to work, this time walking towards his desk. There was a small heap of pieces of paper on a corner, which he immediately grabbed. He leaned back against the bureau, with a focused frown. Enthir had gone to the table Colette was sitting at and was reading through the back cover description of the books she had gathered.

Azrael walked over to the two tomes laid on the other table. Meanwhile, his thoughts moved again to Vampires of Vvardenfell. Details regarding the three major clans of the island were included, as well as the various mentions at attempts to cure the curse. However, the book centered heavily on the catching of the disease and the incubation process that led to the transformation. There was no mention of clean turnings or unchanged faces. None of Vvardenfell's vampires could hide among the common folk. Even if they could, they wouldn't be able to transform. Most vampires are extremely weak to sunlight, the lesser ones may instantly combust from within when exposed. The heat of the Sun makes the blood boil and ignite in their undead vessels, ripping their bodies apart and leaving nothing but a pile of ashes. What he had seen was completely different. A higher breed, for sure. He got to the table looked at the two books. One was a small manuscript with intricate carvings on its cover. Manifesto Cyrodiil Vampyrum, the label read. The other, covered with tattered black leather, was titled Opusculus Lamae Bal. He picked up the latter, not recognizing the name.

The pages rasped as he opened it, grey dust raised from the worn paper. The handwriting so small it was difficult to read. The letters were written down graciously, adorned by flowing embellishments. The first few lines immediately got his attention. The introduction summarized the content effectively, things that Azrael didn't know of. The vampires, all vampires that is, supposedly came from a unique bloodline that had split over the millennia. The foremother was a woman called Lamae Beolfag, violated and transformed into the first vampire by Molag Bal himself. It wasn't something that could have materially helped them, but it gave some context. He read the tattered paper, letter by letter and with extreme attention, but gave up after a while. The introduction was short and to the point, but text itself was complex and convoluted, with many figures of speech. Whatever language it had been translated from, surely the original was more bearable. _So, vampires are the offspring of Molag Bal, in a certain way. The Blood Matron, Lamae Beolfag. I wonder if those bloodsuckers actually revere her or forget about her. They might be happy with their state, but she mustn't have been all that content with being violated_. He stopped at the end of the introduction, content with what he had discovered. He detested learning about something without first having understood it, and that had been a step toward the comprehension of his enemy.

He picked up the second book, and read the tenets. It wasn't his first time laying eyes on those. He remembered something. For instance, the incredible delusion of believing they could live among civilized people like civilized people. _They always seem to forget that they're not mortals. They're beasts. Whatever, at least they didn't cause as much damage as the others._ The first time he had skimmed through it he had missed the mention to the Blood Matron, which immediately caught his eyes. _There's mention…_ he noticed at one point, _of keeping the face supple through regular feeding. So that vampire I've seen might have looked similar to a mortal because he had very recently fed. That could go a long was in explaining how that all went down, but still doesn't explain the absence of signs of the curse._ That was a minor detail, though. Nothing useful on what he'd seen, although their options were still quite open. No mentions of a transformation, as he had been told.

He put down the book, letting his gaze wander spontaneously across the Arcaneum. He looked at the huge window, observing all the meaningless details of the glass. Letters, alchemical symbols and Daedric letters were engraved in the colored crystal. Enthir claimed that if read in a certain order, the ciphers meant something. A message from the artist that had engraved those during the glass manufacture or the architect that had designed them. _Unimportant,_ Azrael said to himself. He often found himself analyzing the insignificant, inconsequential things. His mind worked a strange way, a melding of the reason and wisdom of the Dunmer, the understanding and the abstractness of the Dragons and the cold, calculating intelligence and sharp cunning that were his alone. His mind didn't know such a things as a distraction, because it was always working. Resting equaled releasing and focusing on the irrational flow of thoughts that flowed in his mind. After an indefinite amount of time, his mind naturally came back to the vampires. It was inevitable. He now redirected his mental forces, halting the free flow and concentrating. There still were things that didn't add up. No mention of the transformation meant no significant step forward had been made. What had started as a research for that very specific thing had turned into a generalized study on vampires. He wondered who, if any, among his acquaintances could know more.

'Archmage,' Urag called from his desk. He was holding a short manuscript in his hands. 'There is something you should see.'

The Dragonborn walked towards the Orc, casting a glance at the others. They were still reading, even Enthir had picked up a sheet of paper to skim through. Phinis in particular was very much absorbed with his copy of Immortal Blood. There wasn't a noise in the room, only the light breathing of the improvised vampire investigation team. _The music of life…_ Azrael thought, refraining from sniggering. He moved right next to Urag, looking over at the title of the few bound pages. "Notice: Hall of the Vigilants destroyed". It was an original piece, not a copy or summarized information. The calligraphy of this one was clear and large, clearly written to be legible everyone who knew how to read.

'What's this?'

'That's a warning,' said Enthir, who had been looking from his corner. Colette and Phinis also turned, while the Bosmer kept talking unconcerned. 'It was pinned to the board outside the inn as well. It didn't occur to me it might be useful, it seemed just another kind word of advice against the evil terrible leeches.'

'It sort of is,' Urag said. 'The only thing I found that interesting is the mention of the burning of the Hall of the Vigilants.' He stopped for a moment. Azrael heard a question float in the air: the wonder of when that event had taken place. The Orsimer noticed the puzzled faces of the others a while later. 'You don't know?' he asked. He looked at them for a moment with an astonishment that bordered with scolding. 'It's the only relevant thing that has happened after the last magical rift was closed. Three weeks ago, I think. The Hall and headquarter of the Vigilants was burned down, by vampires. They slaughtered every men and women inside. This notice is signed by an ex-member of the Vigil that has created an organization that calls itself the Dawnguard.'

'Is that a splinter group or an independent association?' asked the Dragonborn.

'Independent,' answered the Orc. 'They have taken shelter in an old Fortress in the Rift, Fort Dawnguard. If you're wondering why they have the same name, it's because this Dawnguard is the second one that has existed. There was another before, in the Second Era, to protect the son of the Jarl of the Rift, who had turned into a vampire. They were forced to kill their ward, reason unknown, which compelled the Jarl to release the members of the organization from their oaths. Now, this Isran is trying to reconstruct a group of men that will bring the hunt to the vampires, this time around. Guards and soldiers from many places in Skyrim are abandoning their posts to join them. Members of the Legion are rumored to have broken their oaths and left, but that hasn't been confirmed. The Empire has tried to keep it a secret. That is all I know. What do you think of this, Archmage?'

Azrael had been reading the sheet as Urag had spoken. He had picked up as many details as he could about the Hall of the Vigilants, and they weren't enough. The part that interested him held very few and insignificant details. _A lot more rhetoric than actual information,_ he thought, gliding over the text one last time. The reported facts only regarded the brutality of the slaughter and its unforeseeable nature. Still, it seemed bold and out of character for the vampires to do such a thing. Azrael couldn't make out anything, not even a pattern. He inhaled, pondering. 'I think,' he said after a time, 'I need to know more about the Hall. There's a hidden strategy behind this, but I can't quite figure it out.'

'With all due respect, Archmage,' asked Phinis, 'what makes you think that?'

'Attacking the Hall was a daring move. One that exposed them. They wouldn't do that, unless that was part of their plan. If it wasn't, it must lay close to it. In other words, what I fear is that they might have a purpose. A purpose that is escaping our understanding. They want something, but we don't know anything about it.' The mages were either sitting or standing around him, listening to his cool and measured words. Azrael swept his gaze upon all of them, seeing if they were all listening and following along. They were. They never ignored him. 'As I've mentioned,' he continued, 'I need more information, but from here on I want to be alone. I'll proceed with my investigations, but none of you will accompany me.'

'Archmage, what will we do in the meantime?' asked Colette.

'You'll search from practical ways to deal with the vampire threat. Everyone will have to use their creativity. Craft cheap scrolls you could sell, contact the court wizards to organize defenses inside the cities, coordinate with other mages. Do whatever you like as long as it helps. Urag, you'll have a special task. You and someone else of your choosing are to keep gathering materials and monitoring the situation. If, for instance, there's a sudden wave of fear running around because of a certain incident, let me know at once. I might not be able to be keep very much in contact with society while out tracing the fiends. All clear?'

The mages casted quick glances at one another. 'Yes, Archmage,' said Colette. 'All clear.' Their faces were grave, serious. Only Urag, who gave clear signs of his will to say something, seemed largely uninfluenced by the discussion subjects. His life in the world of knowledge had rendered him strangely indifferent to worldly matters. He treated them very seriously, but without the emotional weight that many of the other mages had. He would have done his part. Everything that was in his capabilities, and with his help the vampires would be defeated. He didn't feel the prospect of people dying weighing on his shoulders. Some hated his attitude, some loved it. The Archmage simply understood it and tried to manipulate it to the best possible use. Urag didn't mind being used as a tool, as long as nobody interfered with his library.

'Archmage,' the Orc said, 'what will you bring along for the journey?'

'My blades and my bow. And my head. If you have suggestions, feel free.'

Phinis bit his lower lip and turned quickly. 'I'll be back in a moment,' he said quickly, padding towards one of the shelves inside the inner circle of the room. He stepped onto a chair and searched a shelf. He was too short to reach on his feet. Colette rummaged around in her leather satchel attached to her tunic, mumbling something indistinct and not finding anything for the moment. Urag walked to the back of his desk and searched for something himself. _They all have a farewell gift. Even Enthir,_ he thought, noticing the Bosmer picking a fat sack of gold and giving it to him while no one was looking. He winked. Azrael gave him a nod and looked around while the others still looked for their things.

Colette was the first to find hers. 'Here,' she said, fetching a small flask out of her bag. She handed it to Azrael, who picked the small bottle with two of his armored fingers. The liquid inside was moving. A convective movement. It was red, a bright red that isn't common among potions. Not even the ones that heal the worst wounds have that color. He looked at the witch, waiting for an explanation. 'It's a special potion that will work just for you,' she said. 'I've created it with a sample of your blood, which I've taken from the bandages I've put on your injury. Your blood carries impressive regeneration power, and that contains a reagent that should stimulate blood production in case you get bitten. Obviously,' she added with a shy smile, 'it's one of those things I hope you'll never end up using.' The Dragonborn brought his gaze once again to the little vial and then fit it in the bandolier freed by the cleansing mixture he had drunk after the fight with the vampire. It was worthwhile item to carry along. He had learned much from his fight with the vampire, but the prospect of a fight always loomed as he planned his next moves.

Urag had placed two scrolls on the table as they spoke. They were new, untouched and freshly inscribed. Their surface was clean, unlike any he had seen before. Urag said that items infused with magic tend to deteriorate faster because of the intense and high frequency waves of energy that ran through them. This was true with any kind of item, but fragile objects like scrolls withered much more quickly. The effect worsened as the power contained grew, and the magical vibrations coming from the folds of paper were quite powerful. 'These are my latest works,' said the Orc. 'I've etched them personally while Phinis and Faralda helped with the infusion. The one bearing the Daedric letter is a reanimation hex that works especially well on humanoid creatures. The one with the flame is a simple fire incantation that creates an expanding ring of flames around you. Simple and deadly.' He pushed the two rolls towards the Dragonborn and sat back in his chair.

By the time they had finished, Phinis was already in front of them, panting a little bit. He held a tome with the symbol of Alteration magic on its cover. It looked like a spell tome. _Judging by the details, it's an advanced incantation._ The mage breathed deeply before speaking. 'This is for you by Tolfdir. I was almost forgetting. He told me it is a spell that functions in the same way that the one to detect life sources does, but in reverse. It detects the absence of life. I think he meant the undead, but he wasn't more specific.' He handed it to the Dragonborn, who gave it a look and grabbed a tape. He studied where it could go on his armor. Afterwards, he raised his head.

He looked at them. At their worried faces. Yes, he was embarking on another perilous journey. One full of dangers and with a present possibility of death. He didn't feel anything particular about it. He had the necessary knowhow to approach the matter now.

He raised his shoulders consecutively, readjusting the cloak. 'Thanks,' he said, dispassionately, as he moved his first step towards the exit. 'So long.'

* * *

A/N: A quick note about suggestions or requests for this story. _Day Keeper, Night Reaper_ already has a definitive structure and plot which is complex and would be very difficult to alter. Thus, big things are going to be discarded. However, small and inconsequential events that don't impact the story in any overly meaningful way are fine and welcomed.

A brief answer to the review left by Guest: Fine, noted. I'll keep that in mind as I proceed further on. It's no excuse, but I'm still learning to bring this more prolix style to its full potential. Thank you.


	3. Chapter II: Ashes to Ashes

Chapter II: _Ashes to Ashes_

* * *

The Dragonborn wondered, and had been wondering for quite some time, what his enemy's intent was. Even calling it an enemy seemed premature. It was a mere matter that required investigation. There wasn't any judgment or any taking sides involved yet. That vampire had attacked him in the cavern, but that was largely unhelpful. If someone had sneaked up on him and attempted to stab him with a dagger, Azrael himself would have surely tried to kill the assailant with any means necessary. The aggressive reaction wasn't as telling as many of the mages had made it out to be. Vampires were naturally hostile and distrustful of common people and they saw them as an enemy. Still, there was no confirmation regarding the one he had fought. Too many holes that needed filling. Nothing would come to be confirmed by his search without first understanding the whole picture. Absolutely nothing.

There were two people left that could reliably deem his theories right or wrong. One was a bit too far away and the other was dead; and even if he still lived, he would have been too far away, as well. One was Falion, in Morthal. The other was Movarth, also in Morthal, but killed in the recent past. By the Dragonborn's hand, incidentally.

The task regarding Movarth had been a strange one. Apparently a vampire hunter, he had been transformed into a vampire by an unassuming priest. He had continued on and created his own coven. He had settled in the swampy regions of Skyrim and plagued Morthal for many years, but was rumored to have been dispatched. When the vampire activity in the city had intensified, Azrael had offered to look into the matter and shortly after found himself stuck in a complex plot to subjugate the entirety of Morthal. Movarth and his minions paid dearly for their ambition as the Dragonborn led the angry townspeople down into the tunnels to lynch the bloodsuckers. The hunter had become the hunted, and Azrael had shown no mercy whatsoever for him or for his servants. He slew Movarth himself, crippling him with an arrow as two men made him back off with pitchforks and daggers. A flame burst was all it took to end him, dissolving the undead flesh into a pile of smoldering embers.

A lot of answers died with him. Answers that might have turned out to be useful. The simple fact that he had been killed four weeks before that vampire business began didn't look as much a coincidence by that point. He died, and simultaneously more vampires appeared. _This is more reason to think it was organized. Someone is using the smaller pieces of the chessboard to stir up trouble, spread fear._ It wasn't a stretch after what happened. It really seemed there was someone pulling the strings from far back, somewhere far from the surface threat they were allowed to see. Something was being planned. _I wonder what,_ the Dragonborn thought. It seemed obvious to him that someone had set a plot in motion, but he still had nothing to make a conjecture out of.

The issue they were facing was a complex one. It had layers, which meant anyone would be involved, no matter what their occupation or life choices were. From the citizen which would act as a catalyst for the most pitiful of rumors, to the line soldier that would have to stay on guard for long nights with the impending threat of vampires attacking. From the merchant that would see his profits change, for better or for worse, and would try to exploit the circumstances, to the couriers that would do double the job with double the risk in their endless rides from city to city. Lastly, from the grumpy, sanctimonious elders that would use the events to someway remark that 'traditions good, changes bad', down to the bohemian thinker that would ask himself and the world if vampirism is truly a bad thing.

Azrael was tired of those things. All of them. Usually, when people started to think all was lost. Those ignorant, unwitting minds who didn't open their mouth because they had something to say but because they had to say something were the main focus of his scorn. Sometimes, he wished more people had his own mindset. _But the truth is that some do have my mindset, and just like me they remain in the shadows where all that pitiful talk can't reach them._ He always came back to that conclusion. The wisest always fled the common folk. For many reasons, but they did. They lived in isolation and loneliness, just like he did. The Greybeards were like that, just to name a few. And, although it wouldn't come to the mind of any mortal, the Dragons too did that. They lived separated from one another. They spoke only in True Need. Wisdom seemed to be a curse in that world. A curse he accepted willingly and with gratification. When Enthir had made that casual remark about him being above common men, that had come to mind. However, the Bosmer's observation seemed so obvious to him that his attempt at justifying that opinion had sounded superfluous and meaningless.

Vampirism truly was a complicated matter. Only for experts. It wasn't a banal thing that anyone could discuss and gossip about. Even some of the mainstream theories surrounding them were partially or completely wrong. The few things the mages knew about them were still way more of what the populace knew and claimed to be the truth. Some believed vampires to be reanimated corpses. _Why not, they overheard that they're undead and therefore are a reanimated corpse,_ Azrael thought with a slight contempt flowing in and out of his conscious thinking. They were not reanimated however. They were diseased, preternatural beings, but they hadn't been brought back to life after dying. Instead, they had been drained of it almost to the point of death, but not quite. They were on the rim. Vampirism doomed the cursed one to both eternal life and eternal death. From here, the percentage of people which knew the objective actuality diminished even more. Some believed that they became individual with superior understanding, while others that they returned to an animal state. The truth, as it often does, lay in the middle. In fact, the state of the vampire depended on its specific characteristics. They were sentient being, a lot more similar to their mortal counterparts than most would like to admit. They could choose to submit to their feral nature or try to resist it. The calling of their savage side was stronger than any mortal's, but it could be overcome up to a certain point. A vampire that isn't starving can behave exactly like a member of its race, and is difficult to spot because of that.

From those information, it was easy for an expert to infer something more. Nothing of it was remotely comforting. Azrael thought of the mortal soul of those fiends, trapped in a dead shell for way longer than it was intended to last. Drained, shattered, destroyed by remorse and tormented by the long forgotten memories of mortality. Some lived in this condition for centuries, at times millennia. The Dragonborn didn't try to speculate on which effect this could have on their mind and their psychological status. Nothing comforting, again, but that seemed obvious. It required some pragmatism, otherwise he would have never finished asking questions and procrastinating. The direct and merciless approach to the world was what allowed him to triumph on otherworldly threats like the Eye and the World Eater. There are things that need to be dealt with before being understood. And yet, they called him a cynic.

These thoughts and many others flowed through his mind as he rode in the white expanses of the Pale. It had only been eight days since his fight with the vampire, but the sunny days had melted the snow quite rapidly. Shadowmere managed to canter in the slush without much effort. Upon reaching Red Road Pass, the Dragonborn had guided her away from the road and straight South. They had bordered the mountainside for a while, but Azrael knew exactly where they were headed. He had been there once, to argue over a claim one Vigilant had made on the Star of Azura. The Dragonborn had managed to slip away unseen as soon as he had understood that there wouldn't have been any reasoning with those fanatics. He wasn't exactly pleased of their disappearance, but it was in some way convenient for him. Nevertheless, that experience had allowed him to see the Hall in all its splendor. The singed, collapsed ruin covered by snow he saw before him now was nothing like it, although they were the same thing.

Aside from the sound of Shadowmere's hooves on the melted snow, there was a queer and gloomy silence. It served as a warning far more ominous than any words could be. Azrael didn't take his eyes off the building and kept all his other senses on constant alert. The air carried the scent of cinders and humid wood. That smell wasn't brought to him by the wind either, because the air was completely still. The smell was lingering around the place, held up in the valley where the building stood. There were other odors, the one of frozen flesh among those. Aside from the smell and his sight, the other senses didn't uncover anything overly important. He didn't feel anything particular. He focused for a moment on the ethereal energy flowing in the space around him, but there weren't any alterations in its drift.

The Hall wasn't completely burnt. Urag had said the attack had happened around two weeks before, when the snowstorms were still raging. Even during a sunny day the temperature were so low that no fire spread very far. The scattered burnt areas were distant from one another, and only two had extended enough to cause structural failures. The others had merely left carbonized wood and blackened planks. The only thing that had been incinerated completely was the seam roof, but that didn't come as a surprise. Other than that, everything showed the vampire's inexperience with flames. They hadn't started a proper fire and the few blazes they had created must had quickly died off in the chilly air or the even colder wind. As a result, much of the structure was still standing, though far from intact.

The Dragonborn jumped off Shadowmere's back immediately before the short slope that led up to the entrance. He shook the cloak, clearing it of the snow. It had snowed a little on the way, mainly from a dark grey, ominous cloudbank. It had quickly dispersed as it reached the open area where the winds blew the strongest, but not before hailing ice on them. Some people in Dawnstar had told him to await till the sky cleared, but he was in a hurry and he didn't fear the snow. It wasn't summer, when the storms rage and lighting bolts hammer the ground. The air wasn't warm enough for those kinds of thunderstorm to take place. He had quickly dismissed the small crowd gathered around him and had set off.

Hadn't it been for the vampire's bounty, he wouldn't have gone through Dawnstar altogether. The fewer people knew of his current location the fewer could track his movements. Skipping the town was tempting, but he might have needed the money. He had counted the ones in Enthir's pouch and they were no more than two hundred. Not enough for emergencies. The vampire's prize had fetched him three times that amount. He had needed to haggle for the kill's worth, with the Jarl lamenting that at the end of Winter the amount of coin they had was meager. The Dragonborn understood his problem, but he didn't care. Six hundred was a reasonable amount, although that same vampire was worth almost double that price. During the warm season he could have perhaps got two times and a half or three times as much. Nevertheless, the sum that he now carried in Shadowmere's saddlebags was sufficent, and he could have increased the amount without too many issues. Money wasn't a real problem for him. With the high spikes of income coming from the Brotherhood contracts he could already afford a wealthy living, and with the constant income of the Thieves Guild he could define himself rich. However, he didn't show off his wealth. It was wiser not to for one, because there wouldn't have been any explanation as to where all that gold came from. The real reason was even simpler, however. He merely didn't want to. It would draw even more interest his way, something that he didn't crave and cautiously avoided.

While he retraced the events of the past days, he mechanically checked everything he needed to have. The weapons were at the ready, the potions were in their place and all his other tools also. The potion Colette had given him was safely tucked away in the leather pouch on his belt, but he didn't foresee any immediate use for it. The two scrolls were safe, tied to the belt as well; behind him. He looked around, focusing specifically on the path that went up the slope.

The hill was run across by a small stream of water which ran silently down the rise and dispersed in the layer of snow. The remaining sleet was quickly melting under the first strong rays of the Sun. By nightfall a large portion of it would be softened, then congeal again during the night and so on until it melted completely. Azrael walked silently up the slope, careful not to make any kind of noise. He was looking at a strange irregularity in the snow, which became clearer at the end of the rise, where the snow was compact. Short and even thinner shapes, impressed lightly in the snow. _Tracks… An animal? No, these are the marks of shoes. The shape… Flat, small pump shoes. Who comes here wearing something like this?_ He inspected the next few, and everything confirmed his suspicion. Looking closer, he tried to make out something more. The simple fact that they were still there meant something. These weren't left more than five, six hours ago. _Someone came here inspecting the building, under the cover of night._ Only then, putting all the pieces together, he swept his gaze around and noticed something important. There were no prints that went away from the building. _Whatever entered is still in there._

He focused his magicka into his hands, altering its essence. He had learned Phinis' spell in the night's rest halfway between Dawnstar and Winterhold. Knowing the counterpart that detected life force, that one wasn't hard. It just required the caster to focus on the things that don't possess any life force. The mystical energy transformed and altered, pulsing from his hands and scanning the nearby area in search for the element that had been imprinted in the flow by the Dragonborn. The pulses came back quickly, resonating powerfully. Azrael turned in the direction of the source of the echo and managed to visualize it for a moment, drawing a vague outline. It was strangely small, but without doubt undead.

The Dragonborn crept forward, inspecting the ground in front of him before stepping on it. The boots leaned softly on the stone without the slightest sound. Slowly but surely he skulked up at the outer wall and then flattened against the wall, bordering it with careful steps. The wood was stiffened by the cold and the planks were slightly bent. Anything hitting them might have caused them to produce a creaking sound that would give his exact position away. The absence of wind and the strong smell of humid and corpses made him a bit less concerned about the vampire smelling the scent of his blood, but he wasn't so sure the sense that perceived blood overlapped with normal smell. Nevertheless, he was ready for a fight.

He drew the dagger and peaked out inside the Hall. Under the shadow of the hood, his eyebrows furrowed.

'Babette?'

A pair of red, glowing eyes turned in his direction. A girlish giggle rang quietly. 'Hello, Brother!'

The Dragonborn slowly slid the dagger back into its sheath, by his side. The blade hissed sinisterly as it grazed the metal reinforcement of the leathery case. He rose straight and gazed for a moment at the girl, wordlessly. Moving a few, slow steps he entered in the main room of the Hall, illumined only by the rays which got through the planks of the roof and the two openings in the wall, where the fire had managed to destroy something. The light was sufficient, but rather dim. The weak glow of the vampire's eyes was evident, but Azrael found himself not disturbed by it. He had imagined the encounter with the transforming vampire might have left some bad memories in him, but no. She was still Babette and she was a good vampire. If, by good, we mean a murderous agent of a shadowy organization who kills for a living.

The girl smiled. Azrael felt a strange tenderness go through his conscious thinking. Babette wasn't much higher than his waist, a pretty girl that had been bitten just at the right time to show some small hints of the beautiful woman she might have had one day become. That possibility, however, was most likely forever taken from her. Vampirism had taken over, and it wasn't going to regress easily. The pretty round face with full cheeks was slightly bony, the heart shaped lips curved in a repellent twist, the small nose compressed and somewhat gaunt and the big, striking eyes sparkled of a malignant red light. The silky brown hair were combed skillfully, clearly by someone else than herself. The body was thin, the chest with the barely noticeable curve of the breasts. Her small hands were rendered worrisome by the long, talon-like nails she had. She wore one of her usual dresses, this time a red and white one. Maybe she didn't fancy being seen with Brotherhood colors on herself.

She kept smiling, walking softly and whimsically towards the Dragonborn. Clearly, she shared his feeling about the encounter, although she was a lot more inclined to show them. 'And what might you be doing here, Azrael?'

He bent his head slightly to the right. 'You first.'

'Oh, you and your wariness,' she complained playfully. Azrael took the brief moment in between phrases to take a look at her shoes. Small and flat pump shoes. Just as he had thought. 'Well, I came back from a contract…' she said. 'You remember the one you gave me? To one in Solitude? I came home four days ago and Agarur told me the Hall of the Vigilant had been burned down by vampires. I took and interest and came here to see for myself. I've been here for a few hours. If it's the why I came here that you want to hear, it's just curiosity. Now you.'

'I'm here investigating.' Azrael moved his gaze away from the girl, casting a quick glance at the first things in the room that had caught his attention. 'I've come across a vampire on my way to Dawnstar. One that transformed into an abominable blend of a human and a bat. The rest doesn't interest you. What matters is that I'm here searching for more insight on the matter.'

'Transformed, you say?'

Azrael looked straight in her red eyes. 'You know something, do you not?'

The girl shrugged, initially with a neutral expression on her face. 'Not much, but there's only one kind of vampire that can do something like that, although I wouldn't believe any of them to have appeared.' She spoke and then turned towards him. Azrael felt her gaze in his eyes, although she couldn't see them directly. Something she said must had alerted her, or maybe a connection she had made in her head. He didn't know what went through her thoughts, but she was very serious all of a sudden. 'On you loyalty as a friend and your dignity as Listener,' she said, 'are you telling the truth and do you know what exactly are you talking about? Or what you might have meddled with?'

'Yes to the first. No to the second,' he answered imperturbably. Babette rarely called upon his status of Listener, but when she did she was serious. His game had always been to indifferently refuse the gravity, something that didn't annoy the girl only because she knew him very well. 'Now, tell me what other otherworldly, realm-destroying truth I have stumbled upon,' he concluded, on a sarcastic note.

'What you've come across is nothing other than a pureblooded Volkihar vampire.'

'That doesn't help.'

'I know, I know,' she said, slowly getting back her playful self. The smile started to reappear gradually on her lips, showing her small fangs. Azrael wasn't paying much attention to her actions, thought. He was much more concerned with the information she was unexpectedly able to provide. 'The Volkihar,' she said, 'are an ancient vampire clan that resides somewhere in Skyrim. Not even us vampires know exactly where. They became infamous for their ability to hunt in the glaciers in the North of the province. Their breath is said to freeze someone solid, but I don't really buy that. Anyhow, those were only a branch. All the vampires in Skyrim are in some way connected to them, but most of the covens and bloodlines are tainted or so watered down that they have lost almost all the gifts unique to their blood patron. I actually believed pureblooded Volkihar to be extinct, but since they're the only lineage that can shapeshift into something like what you described me. Where did that vampire end up anyway?'

'Dead.'

Babette's eyes opened wide and sparked. 'What?'

'You heard me,' he coolly replied, unconcerned by the Dark Sister's surprise. 'We fought in a cavern. He couldn't defeat me in his normal form, but my chances were slimmed significantly once he transformed. I still managed to kill him. Not before he bit me, however. My blood weakened him and I managed to end him.' He slowly turned his gaze to the girl as he spoke the last words. Babette had a playful but skeptic expression on her face. Azrael knew that she didn't believe that his hybrid life lymph was venomous to vampires. Still, she trusted him enough to have never attempted to bite him. 'I don't care if you don't trust me on that,' he added, dismissively. 'Those are the facts. What you believe is your problem alone.'

'I guess it shouldn't surprise me,' said the girl, pausing queerly afterwards. Azrael knew those strange hesitations. Babette often sighed when she talked, but since she hadn't breathed in the first place there was no air coming our of her lungs. That resulted in those weird breaks. 'After you've dealt with Dragons, one vampire shouldn't be much of a challenge. But I don't know how strong Dragons are, while instead I know or can imagine how strong a highbred vampire can be. I suppose I have to compliment you on that.'

'So kind of you.'

Azrael brought his gaze back to the ruined interiors. The main room of the Hall was a long area that housed a shrine lying on an altar at its end. The stone floor used to be covered by a long, red and golden-embroidered carpet. Benches were always positioned on the sides of the room, and the Vigilants coming back from tiring tasks rested there, praying and discussing away with their colleagues. The Hall was always kept lit with the use of candles and torches. Despite the bad memories Azrael had of the place, he remembered it to be a very comfortable place. Keeper Carcette, former and probably last leader of the Vigilants in Skyrim, had welcomed him inside that same room, allowing him to sit on the benches before barraging him with questions. The warm air and smell of burnt offering and incense was pleasing. Berries were hung to the wall in large wreathes. The image from the past was so intense that it almost replaced reality for a few moments.

The scent of smoke brought him back. The ruined, ravaged room he now stood in was in no way similar to the one he had seen. The carpet had been burned, leaving an uneven layer of ash on the whole floor. The benches were broken, trampled and laid scattered everywhere. Some in pieces, some blacked by fire and some singed and carbonized. Intricate tangles of broken planks formed in the spots were the ceiling had collapsed. The altar, on the opposite side of the room, was smashed into pieces. The wooden table was intact, but instead of the offerings there was the corpse of a Vigilant lying on it. Maybe a coincidence, or perhaps an vile parody of the donations. The floor was seared in more than one place and there were some signs of magical impacts as well. There were cracks and fissures left by ice spells and small darkened breaks caused by lightning projectiles.

'Are we searching for something in particular?' Babette asked.

'Everything left is relevant,' Azrael said, looking around the area.

The corpse of a Vigilant lay on the ground near the Dragonborn. His head was bent in an odd way, the legs twisted. The mace he had used in the attempt to repel the monsters was several feet away. The tunic was splattered with blood in several places, but the portion that protected the covered the abdomen was stiff because of the amount of congealed gore. His eyes were wide open, pale and vague, and his jaw hung open; his face was a mask of dismay and terror. The Dragonborn walked in his direction, slowly tilting his head from left to right to catch details he might miss by just looking straight. _Whatever killed him must have hurt a lot._

He kneeled beside the lifeless corpse. The skin color was unnaturally light, even for someone that has been exposed to the cold for days. It was slightly yellowish, sallow. _I've seen this before…_ the Dragonborn said to himself. He lifted the soft collar of the tunic and brought back the hood, revealing the neck of the Vigilant. Four deep wounds marked the pallid skin, with scratches and abrasions everywhere around. Azrael did as he had done with the corpse on the road and pressed his armored fingers on the sides of the injury, and like the previous time no blood flowed from the cuts. _Bitten_ , the Dovahkiin deduced, seeing nothing that could disprove it. _He fought, then the vampire stabbed him in the belly and he staggered backwards. The fiend took the opportunity and finished him by drinking every drop of his blood._ That seemed the most likely the way the Vigilant had wound up against the floor, twisted and in pain like he was.

'Babette,' he said, still inspecting for corpse for things he might have missed, 'tell me what a vampire feel as it feeds.'

'It's not simple to describe,' she said, moving by his side. Azrael noticed that even while kneeling he was still taller than the girl. 'If you've fed recently it's normal. Imagine tasting food after a day without anything to eat. If a few days have passed, it's different. I think at least once you've been without water for a long time, and it works as if you've been without for… say, two days. These vampires were fighting, though. When we are engaged in violent actions, our feral impulses start to take over and we can bit viciously. This one,' she said, pointing to the Vigilant's wound but clearly alluding at the vampire that had caused those, 'was very angry. He, or she, almost ripped the throat out of the meal.'

The Dragonborn nodded slowly, rising. 'I can see that.'

So far, he had spot the corpses of eight Vigilants. Some vampires too had died, but the sunlight coming through had burnt their corpses to cinders. The bits and pieces of their bodies, mostly pulverized or blackened, lay dispersed in the room. Some of the parts were still vaguely identifiable, like the compressed shape made of burnt, bent bones lying in the middle of the Hall, which was clearly a sternum. Around it lied a coating of grey ashes. _No vampire corpses left to examine,_ thought the Dragonborn. _A pity. They might have been interesting._ For all he knew, those could have just been regular vampires with no link whatsoever to the one he had seen. Even without any corpses, there was something else that had caught his attention.

He proceeded toward the mystery figure. It vaguely, very vaguely, resembled a dog. 'Do you know what these are?' he asked Babette, hesitating to crouch near the nightmarish beasts. The stench of death it carried was unbearable. The big, worn out eyes were unnatural and the black and tattered skin was equally horrific. Sharp teeth were revealed by the half-closed jaws. On the whole, the creature was skeletal, ugly and gruesome. Surely an undead.

'They're Death Hounds,' the girl said, almost nonchalantly. There was even a sparkle of interest in her tone. 'They serve as dogs and servants to ancient vampires. I didn't know any of them had survived.'

'Survived?'

'Yes. They're undead, so they're immortal too. I don't know what they are, exactly, but maybe, just maybe, they're animals that have contracted Sanguinare Vampiris. I don't know how that might have happened, but they resemble their vampire masters in many ways. The Volkihar were said to use those, and it ties in with their frost-related abilities. Perhaps the frosty breath that they used to freeze their victims were Death Hounds. I don't know.'

Azrael grimaced. 'Hideous. Since we're on the matter, do you think these vampires here are related to the Volkihar?'

'How would I know?' she replied, shrugging and walking towards the middle of the Hall. 'When they're dead there's no way of knowing it. I mean, when they're dead it's maybe possible, but these ones have been burnt by sunlight. I can't understand anything from ashes.'

The Dragonborn walked away from the Death Hound, breathing deeply to forget its sordid reek. He edged through the fallen planks, the corpses and the burnt remains of the roof. The ashes of the carpet had covered his boots and his cloak. He lifted his feet and shook them slowly, then grabbed the rim of the cloak and waggled it, raising a cloud of thin dust. The smell of flesh and death was stronger than ever. The valley where the Hall was built was a safe place, but the winds rarely blew through it. A desirable trait when it was still intact, but now that smell wouldn't have gone away for a long time still. Not that anyone would return there after what happened. According to a traveler in Dawnstar, the Skyrim Vigil was considered disbanded by its own members. Many of them had been killed and they were without a headquarter. The few of them that had remained had gathered at Stendarr's Beacon in search for guidance.

Azrael suspected, and had reasons to, that the attack on the Hall hadn't been premeditated. It was one of the most counterintuitive things he could think of, but there was no specific reason they would want the Vigil gone. If it had been planned, it was only because of the positioning of the Hall. The valley was isolated, hidden from immediate view and very far from any road. The loudest screams wouldn't have been heard, so it was the perfect place to strike to make fear spread. _And even considering this, I think it's not the case,_ he thought, going back through his reasoning. The vampires seemed to have been loosened, not pointed at clear targets. With what Babette had told him, the vampire he had killed could have been an important figure in their underworld. If that was the case, why had he attacked a lonely traveler? _They're just stirring up trouble. They were ordered to leave a trail of destruction in their wake._ It all seemed logical and in line with his discoveries, but seeing the issue from the perspective Babette had given him, there was another option. _Loosened, fine, unless…_

He slowed down his steps. _Unless this was retribution._ The idea slowly took shape as all the facts he remembered seemed to rearrange to support his new hypothesis. The vampires' confirmed appearances were scattered across the whole land of Skyrim, but the stranger ones had all happened around a specific area. It was a broad zone, far too large to make anything out of it, but it was a possible starting point. The area had three corners, those being Whiterun, Dawnstar and Morthal. The northerly parts of Whiterun Hold had registered some of the most intense vampire activity in all of Skyrim; Morthal had had problems with Movarth and lastly Dawnstar had been dealing with its own issues. Aside from the one Azrael had killed and the Hall destroyed, there had been other unconfirmed reports. _It's as if they are scouring the land. And the Vigil meddled in their matters._

'Azrael!' Babette's voice brought him back to reality. She was standing near a dark area, hidden in deep shadows. There was an expression on her face that might have been described as joyful. She was very pleased with herself, at the very least. 'Forget I said anything about the corpses being burned. There's one intact right here! There's no sunlight brightening up this corner.' The Dragonborn caught a glimpse of something that might have been boots. The black, studded boots vampires usually wore. 'Come!' she insisted.

Azrael strayed far from the corner until he had a good view. Once he noticed everything was safe, he approached. He saw Babette gave him a fake scolding glance, mocking his suspicion. He allowed her to do that. She knew that his disbelief had saved him time and time again. If something bad happened, she could count on his mistrust to save them from bad surprises. But when seemingly unnecessary, she liked to tease him. As he walked up to the corner he saw more of the vampire, which was surprisingly well preserved. There wasn't an inch of him burnt by sunlight. A tear in the armor suggested a Vigilant had crashed his mace into the vampire's left shoulder. It was hard to determine if the blow had miraculously tossed him backwards into that corner or if he had slouched inside it to shield himself from sunlight.

The armor was probably the most immediate link between this new vampire and the previous one. It looked the same, with the crimson cape and the dark steel plate providing extra protection to the chest. The same pauldrons, the same ornate belt. The area that had gotten shattered by the mace blow was the near the armpit. The strike had probably compromised its tension, snapping the layer of metal in two. After all, that armor might have been as old as the wearers. With what he knew, Azrael could make a guess which ranged from a few hundred to several thousand years.

He knelt beside the corpse and Babette moved a little bit to the right, leaving him some space. She put her elbow on his armored knee. Azrael noticed her following his gaze. He was looking at the face of the vampire. A pale visage, but it was remarkably good looking. Long, flowing dark hair were dispersed on the ground. The narrow eyebrows and high cheekbones completed the glamorous appearance. Both in his mortal life and in his immortal one he must had been quite a charmer. Beside the unusual slimness of the body, the paleness of the complexion and the thinness of the facial skin there wasn't much that distinguished him from a normal mortal.

'Observations?' he asked tersely.

'He's a cute lad. I've never seen a vampire who looks this good after the infections.'

'Because maybe he wasn't infected at all,' Azrael murmured. Upon noticing her curious gaze, he continued. 'The other vampire I found had this same trait. Is this a coincidence or does this mean he's a pureblood too?'

'I would guess,' said the girl. 'He's not telling us, though.'

The Dragonborn remained silent for a moment. He shifted Babette's elbow from his knee. He rose slowly, reaching for the back of his belt. He looked at the little vampire, who in turn was gazing slightly puzzled at him. 'Actually, he is,' he said, coolly.

He touched the scroll Urag had given him. Nothing about its functionality had been specified beside that it worked best on humanoids. Dead or undead, it didn't matter. Necromancy didn't pose the same obstacles as something of the likes of Illusion magic, which was exponentially more difficult to use depending on the target. Undead were difficult to control, machines and Daedra even more so. Necromancy wasn't like that. Since it worked on a deceased body, it didn't interfere with its pre-existing functions. It imbued the lifeless tissue with new energy, independently from the one that previously kept the entity alive. Azrael hadn't used that kind of magic very much in his life, but he was familiar with Conjuration in a broader sense. He knew many hexes to manipulate Daedric entities as well as some that ensnared the soul, allowing him to fill his soul gems. That curse had been particularly useful when crafting and enchanting his armor.

He clutched the roll of paper. Scrolls were tricky to use. The caster didn't need to alter the magicka in any way, since the strength and form required by the spell was already imbued and written within the paper. The energy needed to be transferred to the user and channeled effectively through the caster in order to obtain the best result. Inexperienced individuals might let the stored magicka slip away from their grip, severely lessening the final effect. The spell might come around as too weak or, in the worst cases, misfire completely. The Dragonborn had some experience with scrolls, but more importantly he was skilled enough at magic to create barriers that didn't allow the flow of magicka to seep away from his spells. That was one of the most difficult part. Magic was strong by its own. The part that needed the most attention was the optimization of the quantity of power used for each spells. Novices tended to concentrate too much on the incantation and failed to notice the enormous amount of ethereal force constantly slipping away from their grasp.

Azrael focused, conducting the flow carefully from his fingers into his palms. He slowly and carefully disjointed his fingers from the paper, but the magicka remained stable. That was good. He turned towards the body, using his right hand as a pivot and rotating his left above it. The movements shaped the flow, leading the energy back to the exact form written in the scroll. He felt the change. When the adjustment was slowed down almost to the point of stopping, he brought his left hand down and slightly raised the other one. The power chained to his flesh was so much that his hands started trembling in the attempt to contain it. The muscles tired way quicker, worn out by both a physical and immaterial source.

He released. The force surged out of his hands in the form of a cold blue spark. The body of the vampire glowed of an unnatural white light for a moment, and then it started moving. The dim bright shone faintly inside the crushed shoulder of the vampire, flowing in his body as if it was blood. New life was forced into the limbs, which started trembling frantically. The nerves stretched, emerging on the emaciated, necrotizing skin. The body didn't rise using its arms, but instead it floated distressingly into the air, its back bent in an unnatural way. The feet touched the ground and the whole figure recoiled from the hit. The eyes snapped wide open, burning of a hellish blue light.

'Who gave you that?' Babette asked, pointing at the scroll.

Azrael grabbed the piece of paper and tossed it to the side. He called for a minimal amount of magicka and shaped it to be weak flames. He incinerated the worn and useless roll midair and turned at the girl. 'A friend from the College. They gave it to me for other purposes, but this might be just as useful.'

The girl giggled. 'Such a display of lateral thinking. But are you sure we can get something out of this poor sod? He's died twice, I'm not sure if he remembers anything.'

'Let's find out.' The Dragonborn turned towards the reanimated vampire and looked it straight in the eyes. He started summoning some more magicka, modeling it to resemble a simple mind distortion. Just in case the undead needed any convincing. 'Who are you?' he asked, raising his voice a little to make sure the damaged ears caught his words.

Guttural sounds without any meaning came out of the decaying throat of the undead. His eyes blinked twice, his body reeled slightly. 'Silder,' he said at last. The whisper came out hushed, as if nearly impossible to utter. A faint light came from the depths of his throat. Azrael refrained from asking anything more since the walking corpse looked to be attempting to say something more. Another quiet whisper came. '… The Enchanter.'

'Which coven do you belong to?' Babette asked. Azrael let her talk without any questions. The memory of a reanimated being is usually scattered and imprecise. It works best if functioning through free connections rather than logical reasoning.

For a few seconds the corpse only moaned indistinctly. Then it almost seemed to gain a spark of lucidity. 'Volkihar…' Azrael released the magicka held in his hands, causing the undead to sway but also removing the fatigued frown from its face. The mental delusion was a relatively simple one. Not by quantity, but by quality. It was a distortion that changed the momentary perception of reality of any being, undead included. Another moan of agony signed the interval after which it spoke again. 'Across… The sea…'

Azrael saw Babette steal a glance at him, but he shook his head negatively. He too had no notion of what sea was being mentioned. The girl turned again at the cadaver. 'How long have you existed?'

Azrael made a note of that formulation. The idea of life or age might have meant nothing to the vampire and could have only led to confusion. The concept of existence was much broader and maybe more comprehensible, even in the state he was in. Babette was using the common feelings she and that corpse had as vampires, allowing her to ask questions more precisely and with a higher chance of receiving an answer. A meaningful one, anyway.

The cadaver was struggling to speak, although Azrael's charm helped. 'Centuries…' it said, shaking its head violently. '…Seven.'

'Why the Hall? What were you doing here?'

A death rattle prevented the corpse from speaking immediately. 'Vengeance…' it muttered. 'The Vigil… Killers… The Lord's daughter…' The corpse swayed sideways, blinking in an uncontrolled way. The necromantic force was probably taking over his entire essence, even his memories. It usually happened in a matter of minutes. The undead tilted his head and gave a whimper.

'Where is your hideout?

No answer came. The corpse swayed, moving the arms limply around. The eyes were completely hollow, without any reason left in them. Babette shook her head. 'He doesn't know anything more.'

Azrael stepped forward towards the undead, grabbing its chin with its metallic fingers. He mustered new magicka, molding it in flames that wouldn't expand far but would be hotter and more intense. As he unconfined them, his hand heated up quickly. Small but deadly blazes flowed from it. The fire consumed the flesh of the corpse turning it into smoldering ashes. The vampire groaned helplessly, something that resembled a scream. After the fire had completely consumed its face and a part of its throat, the limbs trembled and then fell down, motionless. The white glow disappeared, the magic dissipated and everything that had been brought to new life returned dead.

Grabbing his consumed cranium, the Dragonborn tossed the body aside. Straight in the sunlight. 'Rest in agony,' he whispered, after the thud of the corpse had resounded faintly throughout the Hall.

Babette leaned against a wooden support that was miraculously still standing. She looked pensive. She partially shared Azrael's attitude of getting involved in every mystery she came across, although in a more passionate manner than him. What they had discovered clearly concerned her. 'That didn't give us as much as I wished,' she said. 'I hope it was worth it.'

'I have two leads now, if anything,' Azrael replied, turning towards her. 'The den across the sea and the daughter of someone important.'

'That doesn't tell us much.'

'It's better than nothing. Any thoughts of what that,' he said giving a nod at the burnt corpse, 'told?'

'Well, he is indeed a part of the Volkihar,' she said, doing one of her weird would-be-sighs pauses, 'a half-breed, I'd say. That much we know, at least. Seven centuries old isn't an impressive amount of time for someone like him, though.'

'How do you know if he's part of the Volkihar?'

'There are words a vampire only can understand,' the girl said. 'Much more so when he's in a non conscious state like a forced reanimation. When I asked him about his coven we meant more than his bloodline, but his heritage and the people he lived with, if any.' She folded her arms, drumming her feet against the scorched floor. 'He's seven centuries old, so I don't think he has been given the full gift. However, for him to be a half-breed there needs to be a real group of pureblooded Volkihar that still lives somewhere. Presumably across the sea, like he mentioned.'

'Any idea where that might be?'

'None, although I could guess he meant the Sea of Ghosts. Maybe, just maybe, the Nordic Coast. I'm more inclined towards the Sea of Ghosts, though. If the stories about them hunting in the eastern glaciers are true, it would make sense. Supposedly, they never come out of their chilly hideouts if not to feed. But I'm not so sure. Those vampires lived secluded and there's no mention of any of them being able to transform. They could be a smaller group, a side lineage. The most known, but not the most powerful. The Volkihar are ancients, and now I'm sure they still live. They could be hiding anywhere, and might have been hiding for a long time. Actually, their blood is very strong; so strong I'm inclined to believe their original blood patron is still alive.'

'How long has he been around?'

'Centuries certainly, millennia possibly. Perhaps eons.' Babette shrugged, expressing her uncertainty. 'There's no way of telling, I'm afraid. Not with what we have. By the way, what are you going to do with these leads of yours?'

Azrael breathed out, thinking. There were a few options, but he selected and told her the safer and most likely. 'I'm brining what information I have to Fort Dawnguard, to the vampire hunters. Perhaps they can help me. If not with information, with a little bit of manpower to gather the missing pieces of the puzzle. I'm not going to consign them anything substantial I've learned,' he added after a moment. 'I don't trust them. Their founder is a former fanatic who has an obsession with bloodsuckers, and that's not the kind of people I rely on.'

The glance Babette stole at him was somewhat cross. Azrael knew at once that something in his words or in his tone had irritated her. He had an assumption, one that was very likely. She was, sometimes, a normal person. Predictable and impractical. 'When are you going to start trusting others?' she asked, proving his supposition true.

'Never,' he answered coolly.

'You'll need to, sooner or later.'

'I've already trusted Astrid enough, and you remember where that has led us.' He turned towards her, with a prepared counterattack. 'Besides, look who's talking.'

The little vampire nodded drolly and excessively. 'I know. Fine, a point to you,' she admitted. 'But I don't think you can handle this alone. You'll need backup. You're not the one taking decisions this time around; the responsibility falls into someone else's hands, and it would be sensible of you to tell that person everything you know so that he can make an informed decision. That's what others have always done with you. It might be your time to play another role.'

'I'll not tell him anything,' he repeated. 'Even if he knew everything I've learned, he'll not make an informed decision. He's a radical. He'll try to exterminate the threat as quickly as possible.'

Babette paced around, measuring the space between two burned planks with short steps. Discussions of that caliber weren't normal, but it wasn't their first time. She was calm too, and determined. Azrael always felt like she had started to idealize too much and that her distance from common people had led her to consider accurate some ideas that were, in truth, idyllic. He, in turn, had the feeling that she believed him to be too mistrustful. They respected their positions, since neither of them was a normal person by any stretch, but they also didn't put down the argument and acknowledged their different opinions as valid simply because they were too different. They were both thinking people, and they liked a challenge. Whether physical or intellectual, it mattered little.

'So,' she said, 'you're planning to let them tell you what they know and not the other way around.'

'Bullseye.'

'Why?'

'Because they'd make a reckless move, trying to delete the enemy when nothing of it is yet known or understood. They'd likely fail, among other things.'

'And you're absolutely certain of your success? You might make a rash move as well.'

'I won't,' he said, lapidary. 'With their knowledge, I'll see this through.'

'Azrael, I can't believe you sometimes,' she said, with a grin that wasn't forced at all, but could have been. 'You're the most powerful man walking about in Skyrim right now, I know, but your arrogance will be your undoing. Of all the good things you could do in cooperation with those hunters, you choose to manipulate them? Really?'

'I don't remember you caring very much about ethics.'

'I don't, as a matter of fact. I'm a Dark Sister, remember? I've been one for over three centuries. As much as I understand compassion and sympathy, I'm not really one who practices them. On the other hand, I know that a stable trust is the ideal condition of any organization. Likewise, I know basic values. They apply even inside the Sanctuary. You and the vampire hunters are partners in this, as two Dark Siblings might be. They don't hide information from one another.'

Azrael shook his head imperceptivity. 'It's not like Dark Siblings. They won't trust me, either. They are former members of the Vigil, they'd gladly kill me the moment they know I've been meddling with the Daedra. They won't for the sole reason that it would cause an uproar. We're enemies, we'll momentarily be united, but that is it. It may be true that my enemy's enemy is my friend, but it's also true that the ally of today is the enemy of tomorrow. Especially for me.'

'Why not blackmail them instead?' she asked. 'Information and complete trust in exchange for a good word from you. You would bound them to you.'

'If they understand my game they'll know better not to agree.' The Dragonborn was growing somewhat tired of that talk, as much as he enjoyed a confrontation. Time was at the essence, and he felt as if he was wasting it. He turned his whole body towards her, looking at her along the full length of his hidden nose. 'Enough,' he said, glacially. 'I'm not discarding any of the options you've given me, but I have to see it with my own eyes. Until that moment, I'll consider the worst case scenario.'

'The voice of pragmatism speaking…' giggled the girl. 'Good, I'll let you do it your way. I've been able to soften you in the past, but this time you seemed resolute. The only thing I give you is my best wishes for your journey. And… Azrael?'

'Yes?'

She looked strangely fearful now. Shy, almost, which was strange for someone like her. 'Well, the Volkihar are my family,' she said. 'Not directly speaking, obviously, but I come from them. It's a bit like what your Ancestors are for you, even though you don't follow your tradition. It's merely personal.'

'That's enough for the premise. Get to the point.'

Azrael thought that if there had been any saliva in her mouth, Babette would have swallowed. 'If you can solve this without eradicating the Volkihar, I'd be very thankful.'

* * *

A/N: For those who haven't read _The Assassin_ , the Dark Brotherhood has been recruiting new members since Azrael became their leader. There's Agarur, who was mentioned in this chapter. There's also Laegiine, who we'll encounter further on into the story as well as Wildach — mentioned briefly in _Godsplitter_ 's fifteenth chapter "Hunter" — who will also make an appearance.

Focusing on Babette for a moment, I'd point out that she's one of my favorite characters. There's more depth to her here than in the game, and she is an important figure to Azrael because of the insight she's able to provide and the unique understanding she has of him.

From here on, the story will reconnect with the general game storyline and loosely follow it.

'Till the next.


	4. Chapter III: The Wardens of the Day

Chapter III _:_ _Wardens of the Day_

* * *

Azrael stepped towards the stairway leading to the Ragged Flagon. He had come from the Ratway. There had been business to conduct with people up in the streets and entering from there was his best option. He didn't often go to the Temple of Mara, and there was no logical reason for him to go near the eastern city wall. It would attract attention. Walking around the market and then suddenly disappearing wasn't less enigmatic, but it was expected of him. He had a reputation for getting away unseen and unheard, and if the last place he was seen in was the market, nobody would have doubted anything. He had settled a spiky matter with Maul and consulted a couple of vendors before descending in the bowels of the sewers. They were dirty, but less than on his previous visit.

During the winter, there had been a scarce amount of water flowing down that gutter. The smell had become unbearable by the end of the cold season. Any thief took the other path, the one leading inside the Cistern. Their clients were less lucky. Surviving the travel through that labyrinth of drains was the price to pay to have the Guild by their side. Generally, the Guild brought the business to their contacts, but there were times when those people might need to come down in the Ratway. It wasn't a pleasant experience, for any of them. With the cold loosening its grip, the water had began to pour again into the pipes and the drains, making the stench somewhat tolerable.

The Dragonborn walked down the short stairway. He opened the door leading to the Flagon, putting a forearm on it and pushing. It was quite heavy. He had ordered to reinforce it a while back. The truce issued between the Imperial and the Stormcloaks had allowed the captain of the guards to have the necessary men to try an assault on the Flagon. Without any real defenses, the thieves had used shrewd stratagems and traps to confuse and disperse their adversaries. Azrael wasn't sure they would have managed if not for him. Karliah had prepared excellent tactics, but none inside the Guild had the decisiveness and the willpower to make quick decisions and coordinate the entire operation. Aside from him.

He shut the door behind. The first thing that came to him was the noise. Voices, both hushed and raised, footsteps, yells, laughs, containers being moved. The sounds coming from the merchants in the alcoves echoed out of the four niches. They all looked fairly busy. There were queues at most of the shops, the longer one waiting at the alchemist. The smith was working his metals, beating the hammer on the anvil and adding its dull sound to the general noise. There wasn't anyone in line at his workshop. It was the only such case. Even Vekel, on the opposite side of the circular pool, looked very busy. The talk coming from the tables of the Flagon was quieter, but it still remained in the category of loud voices.

Azrael looked at the costumers and the non-members sitting at the tables of the Flagon. Most were known faces, but not all of them. There was a woman buying something at the fletcher that he didn't recognize. She had sharp features, high and prominent cheekbones and a stern face. Long black hair hung down on her back. A beautiful woman. _Thirty years, not more,_ Azrael decided. She carried a reflex bow on her back, a excellently crafted one. It was reinforced with moonstone on both limbs and the grip was carefully covered in a leather band. It was strung with a thin cord, almost certainly animal sinew. That was an excellent bow for a possibly excellent agent. Being down there, it was improbable she worked for any legal organizations.

Syndus, the fletcher, moved away from her for a moment. He walked up to the creates on the rear of the alcove, probably looking for something. Azrael caught the opportunity to step closer, moving gradually in the line of sight of the woman. The chances of her turning around or hearing him were slim, and he planned on actively catching her attention. Of course, he didn't have to know everyone that went through the Flagon, but that person looked worth his time.

Upon eyeing him, she immediately turned to face him. She was shorter than him by a full span, but she looked at him straight. Her traits lost their severity and softened in a more welcoming expression. 'You,' she said. 'You must be the Guild Master.'

'I am. Who are you?'

The woman turned slightly baffled all of sudden. She probably had expected a specific pattern of questions which didn't revolve around her identity. She clearly needed a moment to adapt. The Dragonborn did that frequently, intentionally predicting what questions the other person was thinking about and asking something completely different. It rendered everyone more sincere. In case he required information that a person might not give up easily, it worked even better. He gave a surprise request and then kept the pressure on, effectively manipulating other person's anxiety towards coercing an answer they might not want to hand out. However, the reason he had done it with that specific woman in the Ragged Flagon was just to avoid any unnecessary loss of time.

'Dortra…' she said after a moment, a little smile making its way on her thin lips. 'You might have heard of me. I go by Black Lynx in my association.'

'Rings a bell,' the Dragonborn said. He cast a quick glance at the crates Syndus was poking in, noticing that he was picking only bodkin-headed arrows. They also had long shafts and the fletching made of copper. Azrael knew almost everything there was to know about bows and arrows, and he knew what those were for. 'On the hunt for someone armored, are we? And from a distance.'

'Yes,' she said, turning towards the small pile of arrows the Bosmer had put beside himself. 'One of my associates has tried to kill my target before, only to leave nothing but a scratch on the brute's armor. He's garbed in strange suit of metal and leather. Black and red apparently. Not an armor I've ever seen. These arrows should pierce the plate and the chainmail underneath, if he wears any. I got to catch him from a distance because the bastard is sneaky. He always managed to get away once he hears you, and he can hear you from a mile away it feels like. I can't say anything more, I'm sorry.'

Azrael knew what he needed and decided it was high time he left. Without answering or adding anything, he stepped behind her. 'Farewell,' he said, walking away. The woman gave him a last nervous smile and waved her hand faintly. The Dragonborn turned his head around just for her to think he was looking away and kept a close look on her reactions. She just followed him with her gaze a little longer and then turned towards the fletcher, who had found all the supplies she needed.

Azrael had heard of her. He had never seen her before, but her epithet was quite known in the criminal underworld. The Dragonborn wasn't too fond of her organization because they had the daring tendency to interfere in Brotherhood affairs. The contract Babette had just completed in Solitude was, incidentally, a hit against her organization. They were criminals, and the Dark Brotherhood didn't have any business with them as long as they kept their distance. They were willing to collaborate, if it was possible and advantageous. However, they could not ignore the request of a man asking the Night Mother for help. The Black Lynx would find unpleasant surprises upon her returning home, but the Dragonborn wasn't about to tell her. Her presence there made him content nonetheless. It showed how large the influence of the Guild was growing. Every illegal organization and many individuals were buying inside the Flagon and were probably bonding with the Guild. The thieves, in turn, were the only association in Skyrim which had direct contact with the Brotherhood, since Azrael was the leader of both. It was all very theoretical still, but with the warm season the two could have accomplished things thought impossible before.

As he neared the wooden footbridge that went across the outlet of the pool, the first members of the Guild started to notice him. He saw Delvin, sitting lonely in his favorite corner with a mug of mead and a pile of papers beside it. He also saw Vex and Tonilia, discussing business with two Khajiits, whose faces looked vaguely familiar thanks to the color pattern of their fur. There was also Vekel, Dirge and a couple of the new members. Most importantly, sitting at a table not far away from there, was Brynjolf. The redhead shifted his green eyes on the Dragonborn only when some of the other thieves started raising their voices. He was in the middle of some talk with two young, wealthy-looking gentlemen that sat at his same table. He interrupted the discussion immediately, joining the general commotion.

'Welcome home, Guild Master!'

'Boss!' Dirge cried, covering all other voices. 'Welcome back!'

'Quiet,' ordered the Dragonborn. Azrael felt his voice echoing in the Flagon, drawing the attention on him. He knew the acoustic of the place, and he remembered the exact note that made the wall rebound the sound of his words. 'I'm not here to stay,' he explained. 'I'll be going in an hour or less. All of you, back to your work. If there's anything you need to tell me, come to me. One by one. Bryn.' He turned at his second in command, who immediately made his attention known with a nod. 'A moment, if you can.'

'Give me just a second to settle things with our noblemen here. Actually,' he added, 'maybe you can join the discussion.'

Azrael gave him a slight nod in turn. He cast a glance at the thieves all around, encouraging them to get back to work. On other occasions, he would have given a short speech enlivened with some of his legendary dark humor and caustic wit. When he did, their laughs and their applauses were enough to confirm that they truly enjoyed themselves. He relished in making those short and satiric orations too. By making those up as he spoke he tested his intellectual reactiveness; by making them laugh he further strengthened the bond with his subordinates and gained a new degree of power over them; last, but not least, he enjoyed himself. Seeing that rabble of criminals gathered before him and laughing reminded him of the long process that had led them there. A path that had taught him a lot about himself and the world. But for this once, no interruptions. His visit had to be brief.

He sat down at the table beside Brynjolf, facing the two gentlemen. Bryn was visibly a bit tense, although the signs that gave it away were hard to spot. On the opposite, the two men looked plainly terrified. They followed the hidden face of the Dragonborn with their eyes as if entangled to it. 'These lads,' Bryn explained, 'are here for an agreement involving trade routes that compete with the East Empire Company. They offered us a deal. They gain our protection and guarantee that they won't get shut down in exchange for a percentage of the profits. Is this viable?'

'By all means,' said Azrael. 'Erikur in Solitude will see that their operation works without interference. A Guild member will need to deliver a letter directly to him with all the instructions. What about the percentage?'

'We have agreed on a thirty-five percent of the net income.'

The Dragonborn turned towards the two gentlemen. They were normal, delusional young men that sought more wealth than what they already had. The rich dresses they wore were embroidered with red and golden decorations. They were both young, certainly not older than the Black Lynx. They were both fair-haired and brown-eyed, but one had square jaws and prominent features while the other had softer and less outstanding traits. _Young, spoiled and stupid,_ summarized Azrael. He always felt his sadistic instinct knocking at the door of his rational thinking, but most times he sent it back where it belonged. In those occasions however, there was no reason at all to have pity for them. It was better to keep them pinned down for the rest of their life to prevent their vanity and conceit from doing any damage to the world.

'Fifty percent,' he said, glacially.

The two looked disconcerted and halted every movement. Azrael could almost see the blood flowing off their bleaching cheeks. A moment later they were as pale as the corpses sucked dry by the vampires. Their lips trembled, trying to open but jarring to a halt every time. 'But…' muttered the one with the strong jaws, but was unable to continue. The embarrassment of not being able to speak caused the blood to flow right back in the faces, dying them of a vivid red. They were pathetic.

Azrael decided to cut to the chase. 'It's not negotiable,' he said. 'Take or leave.'

The two shared a worried glance. They whispered something that he didn't understand, but he didn't need to hear. He could imagine what they were saying. Even if they had changed their minds, they couldn't refuse. They had contacted the Guild. Now the thieves knew their identities and could someway reach the authorities. It wasn't even necessary to bride those authorities into punishing them. It would have been enough to spread the word. Nobody, both in the legal overworld and the illegal underworld, would have ever accepted them. Their riches would diminish and then end. They would become poor. And worst, they now knew the Guild Master's identity, and they knew he wasn't one you just play with. Azrael cast a glance towards Brynjolf, who nodded nervously. He didn't feel at ease extorting agreements out of clients, but trusted his boss completely.

A few more seconds of silence passed by. Azrael was starting to grow impatient, but further vexing the two wasn't a good strategy. It was better to wait, letting their own fears devour them. One of them raised his head. 'It's a deal,' he mumbled. His lips were trembling.

'Good,' Azrael said. 'We'll contact you as soon as we're able. A pleasure doing business with you.'

The sarcastic undertone of his last sentence closed the circle. The two, if they still hadn't realize, had been trapped and exploited. Squeezed like a fruit. They rose, holding the expensive furs covering their shoulders. They bowed quickly, turning away and walking hurriedly towards the exit. Dirge gazed down and gave them a dark look, making them retreat to the side. One of them almost fell into the lake, and didn't only because his fellow aided him. A short and merry laugh rose from the thieves as the two proceeded. Humiliated.

Azrael turned towards Brynjolf. 'Deal with their matters from the day after tomorrow. I want them to have a little pause before they're thrown into the business. Now, to the matter at hand. What can you tell me about the Dawnguard?'

Brynjolf cocked an eyebrow. 'As much as anyone in this city,' he said. 'Why me, lad?'

The Dragonborn generally couldn't stand people who asked explanations, but he had always made an exception for Bryn. Ever since the center of power and decision-making of the Guild had moved into the hands of Azrael and Karliah, labeled "Dunmer buddies" by the Guild, Brynjolf had managed to relax and embrace his extraordinary ability at understanding and supporting others. He had everything Azrael lacked and vice versa. He was sensitive and empathetic, but sometimes he focused so much on others he overlooked his own abilities. That led to ask confirmation or seeking approval, chiefly from those he respected.

Azrael had his ways to comfort him. 'Because out of all this damned herd of thieves you're the most reasonable,' he said, but the key was the conclusion. 'And, I forgot to mention, you're the one I trust. There's Karliah, fine, but she's not here. Answer my question.'

The redhead grinned cheerfully. 'Well, if you put it that way…' He sat straight, resting a clenched fist on the table and looking absently at the mug of mead. 'Well, there are lots of unconfirmed things being told. The most reliable source we have is a boy from Stonehills that wanted to join them. He left after two days because the training was too intense. He described the life inside the caste where they hold up, and they seem serious about their business. They subject the novices to a hard and intense training to hone not only their fighting capabilities but also their resistance and endurance. They are rumored to teach their recruits to sleep a lot less than ordinary man so that they can sleep using a small time of the day and stay awake at night.'

'These are just preparations and investments, however. Have they done anything material yet?'

'No, they haven't. A few of their trained members are scattered around the cities, supposedly to convince more people to join their cause, but they take action when there are vampire attacks. They are skilled and know their enemy, but they constantly remark that they lack the equipment necessary to pull off any bigger actions. When I heard of a new organization being created I thought it was a chance for profit, but I realized that they're doing everything with their own hard work. They haven't bought a single stone slab to repair their crumbling caste. They mine it directly out of the mountain. They're looking for armorers and smiths, that much we know. They could use some money, too. Karliah even considered sending them funds anonymously.'

'How come?'

'The best heists are pulled off by night,' Brynjolf sighed, turning towards the Dragonborn. 'But the night is dangerous as of late. The leeches are stealthier than any of us and they smell anyone from far away. It's becoming more and more difficult to work without considering their threat first. It is part of the job to be where no one can see you or hear you. But they don't hear your cries, either. Long term tasks have become more complex, as well. Our agents can't afford to sleep in the open. A group of outlaws or some wild animal doesn't pose much of a threat, but roaming vampires do. The Dawnguard promises to find out and eradicate the vampire threat from the roots. They seem to think this increase in their numbers isn't random and there's someone behind it.'

 _They reached my same conclusion,_ Azrael thought, _but they could have arrived to that assumption through different hints. Either way, they know something. They even might have more information about the Hall of the Vigilant. There were still many unsolved mysteries surrounding the matter, and maybe, just maybe, the Dawnguard had the solution to some of them._ Going there seemed worth his time, if anything. However, for a group that was recruiting from all over Skyrim they managed to remain pretty secretive. They might have wanted to avoid giving their existence away to the vampires, but there was too much talk around. If the vampires wanted to know, they could. Especially those Volkihar purebloods that were remarkably similar to common mortals.

'Nothing else?' Azrael asked.

Brynjolf shook his head. 'Nothing worth the mention. You're headed for their headquarter, I suppose?'

'Yes. As soon as I can.'

* * *

Fort Dawnguard was well hidden in the highlands. Azrael had almost gone past the mountain pass leading to the castle, since it was small and out of sight. It was more of a gorge rather than a pass, with both rock faces looming over the pathway. The lush foliage further hid the passage. The green that dominated the vegetation of the Rift was alienating if compared to the dry, frozen tress of the Pale. There was no snow, no sleet and no melting water. The white fields of the mountains were very large, but they didn't reach the elevated, apparently flat ground where the most important portion of the Rift was. The gorge, however, was constantly in the shadow and there still was a layer of snow inside it.

The Dragonborn had resigned to leave Shadowmere outside. He had thought about bringing her in, but he feared the passage would reduce in width and force them to turn back, which might have been difficult given the scarce space. _No wonder they didn't buy any materials,_ Azrael thought, searching the saddlebags for any useful things he could bring along. _I can't imagine them carrying a plank or a chunk of stone inside here. A cart cannot pass. Maybe a mule. Still, good luck crafting something big inside and then bringing it out._ It was roughly twenty feet from bottom to top before the colliding faces of the mountain neared enough to prevent anything from going through. But even the space underneath was quite narrow.

The Dragonborn closed the saddlebags and tightened the buckles. Shadowmere was fine on her own, but in case she started galloping it was best for the carriers to be steadily fastened. The mare snorted and neighed quietly. Azrael smiled faintly, patting her on the strong sides. He hated to depend on people, because they might someday decide that helping wasn't convenient for them anymore. That was the reason he worked alone. Shadowmere was different. He knew he could safely rely on her. Her origin was still practically unknown to him, but any degree of pragmatism could lead to trust experience when nothing else existed. She had always remained loyal to him, even in the most dire of circumstances. She had no reasons to betray him. Her animal intelligence and unnatural cunning was useful and pleasant at once.

He did his usual check and walked inside the gorge. The soft snow made hushed noises as he stepped on it. The air inside the passageway was fresh, much colder than outside. There was no sun heating the stone and there also was the snow keeping the temperature low. A few snowberry plats had managed to grow where rays of sunlight came through cracks. Azrael looked at the end of the ravine, a triangular opening in the rocks illumined by the Sun. It wasn't too far away. He looked up, noticing that the rocks didn't draw nearer as he expected. In retrospect, he could have led Shadowmere inside; it was better to leave her outside either way though. The valley in which the Fort rose was described as a small glacial dale, but its precise morphology was unknown to him. The Dawnguard definitely had put some effort into keeping some things a secret.

When he arrived at the exit he was hit by an intense light. A snowy, verdant landscape appeared in front of him. The firs were still heavy with snow, unlike the tress outside. The mere fact that there were evergreen coniferous and not the beeches and birches that grew in the Rift proved that the valley where the Fort was situated was an ecosystem on its own. The rocky tors and white peaks surrounded the vale, enclosing it in a frigid circle. Azrael walked onward, looking at the large glaciers that came down from the summits, melting and creating torrents which formed majestic waterfalls. He couldn't quite see where all that water ended up, but it was presumably a lake. The fragrance of fresh resin and cold air was welcome to the Dragonborn, that still hadn't managed to get rid of the Ratway's stench.

The path started to incline, going down. Predictable. The bottom of the valley surely wasn't as high as he was in that moment. He went down the hill, finally getting a glimpse at the lake where the thawing water gathered. The trees were luxuriant, and the grove which surrounded the lake had some deciduous trees as well. A green grass grew in the few clearings and a thin undergrowth sprouted where the foliage obscured the sunlight. The snow diminished, and the path was mostly free of it. On the edge of lake was a figure. Azrael looked at it, and quickly realized he was a man, probably a Nord. Dark blonde hair, peasant clothes, some rough leather boots, an iron axe and little else to his name. He was calmly washing his hands in the lake, crouching near the water. There were no fresh footprints, so he might have been stationary there for quite a while. Or maybe he had come from the Fort. He couldn't guess anything on what he saw, since there were no prints coming from the other end of the valley either.

The man didn't hear him. Azrael chose not to intrude and walked onward.

A stag ran out of the copse on his left and darted through the path, jumping in the grove that bordered the lake. Azrael followed it with his gaze until he couldn't. A sad smile lingered for a moment on his lips. There was something within nature that managed to calm him. He frequently felt united with it. Certain parts of it more than others, clearly, but it was a frequent feeling nonetheless. Fire was part of his essence since the day he was born, but with time he had acquired a queer closeness with water and ice. The cold air, unspoiled landscape and fresh smell of that valley was welcome to him. _If anything, those men know where to build their fortresses,_ he thought. The path proceeded upward. There was a rock formation blocking the path and hiding the bottom of the valley. It could have been a peak once, but the melting glacier had eroded its sides. The path was slowly circumnavigating it.

Azrael felt his mind slow down, halting its never-ending activity. The tranquility laced within the glade was slowly influencing him, emptying the void that he usually filled with intellectual activity. His thoughts lost the rigid bounds, starting to flow more naturally. He sorted them and listened to them to them, letting them flow heedlessly. Those were the moments when his whole conscience melded in a unique and natural series of concepts and ideas. It was also the moment when his inner daemons started first knocking at the door and then smashing through it, if kept away. He often let them in, welcoming their pitiless remarks and accusations. He allowed them to speak. There was nothing that could disrupt the chaotic order that had formed in his mind. _Why are you doing this?_ his inner daemon asked. _Why are you even involving yourself in such a matter?_

The Dragonborn breathed deeply, listening to the fibers of his body replying the question. He gave voice to his own essence. _Because I'm curious,_ he thought, answering the daemon. _I'm ambitious. I crave knowledge. Yes, I admit that my first answer wouldn't be that. It would be that I'm saving the world again, but the world can end for all I care. Don't think you're the evil one, because I'm worse than you are._ When reminded they were not the fouler of all the voices of the Dragonborn's mind, the daemons usually kept their silence. They were useful advisors. They served to highlight the impossibly tiny problems and inconsistencies. Most people would try to ignore them, but he found them vital for his mental stability. They were a necessary part of him, the one that allowed him to approach the world the way he did. When people lamented he was too distrustful, it was because he was paying attention to those voices.

The path went up a final slope, passing the huge monolith. Suddenly, seemingly out of nowhere, Fort Dawnguard appeared in all its enormous proportions. _Bigger than I expected_. The walls were simple pile of stone hunks and cobblestone bricks, still even and smooth after all that time. The round towers rose at the angles of the outer fortifications, with a great central keep rising in the sky above every other structure. The opposite side of the stronghold leaned against the mountain, which were fortification enough. The entire fortress was built on a rise of the terrain. The bottom of the walls was roughly four meters higher than the ground level where Azrael stood. The path went forward, Azrael couldn't still see where exactly. It was bordered by thick bushes and plants with all sorts of flowers blooming. There were two towers looming over the pathway, the same round ones that were also built at the corners of the walls.

In between stood a man. Brown-haired, a bit too short to be a Nord. He had a full beard and traits that, again, came from somewhere beyond Skyrim. Azrael looked at the armor he wore, a suit which he was not familiar with. The main protection was a sturdy plate on the chest and abdomen which also covered the back and a small portion of the thighs. Underneath he wore a more common brown leather gambeson. He also wore gloves, reinforced vambraces and plated boots. Hadn't it been for the heavy coat on the upper parts of the body, the armor might have been light. It surely had its uses, although its design was particular. The Dragonborn noticed the thick gorget. It was clearly a defense designed to fight with vampires, down to the most meticulous of details. The sturdy chestplate protected from the strong but imprecise hits a starved one could deliver; the neck protection made sure that the monster's teeth wouldn't reach the flesh and the vambraces could have been useful for blocking incoming swings without those slicing off the wearer's hand.

The man raised his head. Upon seeing the Dovahkiin, he swallowed. 'Welcome, stranger. What do they call you?' Apparently something had suggested him Azrael wasn't there to join their organization. There were clear thoughts racing through the man's mind. They were so intense they seemed lo leave a mark on his forehead. He was obviously trying to remember where he had already heard or saw about someone looking like the person walking towards him, but clearly couldn't remember. Or maybe he had heard stories and was trying to figure out if he was or not the person he had heard so much about.

'Azrael,' the Dragonborn answered coolly. There was no need for further presentation and even less to brag with titles, epithets or whatnot. The nonsense going around was enough without him bolstering it.

The series of incoherent movements on the man's face confirmed his presumption. 'Dragonborn…' he whispered, in awe. 'Can I… Can I do anything for you?'

'You can.' He stopped a few feet in front of him. He put more weight on his left feet, which he had moved a little bit further than his right one. He loomed over the man. 'Introduce me to your leader, and while we're on our way I have a few questions.'

The man nodded energetically. 'As you wish. Please, call me Celann. Follow me.'

He turned at once and walked at a steady pace along the pathway. _Compliant, but not in a frenetic way,_ thought the Dragonborn. That might have actually been someone worthy. He followed him, slowing down the rhythm of his steps. Celann's legs were shorter. He couldn't keep up with him without rushing. Azrael glanced around at the clearings, obtained by cutting down the tress, which where covered with equipment for the recruit's training. There was no one in sight still, but he heard the distant sound of voices coming from somewhere around him.

'Celann,' he said, 'tell me how you're holding up. News from the outside are unclear.'

'I'll tell you, Dragonborn, our situation isn't great.' He hadn't looked directly at him since they had started talking. Not even in the general direction. 'The only thing more surprising than hearing from Isran after all these years was hearing that he wanted my help. He never, ever asked for help. He had his plans and his reasons, ideas that often conflicted with what others thought. If he needed help, things must be pretty bad. And that's exactly what we've got in our hands now. A threat on a scale that we've never faced and that could potentially be much larger than most of us think.'

'You've worked with Isran before.'

'That I have. There was a time, years ago, when we were both members of the Vigilants, and both equally dissatisfied with them. We had different ideas and didn't understand the single-mindedness of most of our companions. Their hearts are in the right place, of course, but Isran and I were never comfortable. They fought what they were meant to and never focused on the immediate and most important threats. What happened recently with the Hall, same thing. There's a member of the Vigil talking to Isran right now, asking for help. They ignored the menace, they always do, but this time they have found their match. I'm not happy, they were my friends and companions, but it was bound to happen. Isran will tell him just that. The moral of the story is that we left together, but that partnership didn't last very long. I didn't agree with some of his methods. He's always broody and suspicious. He'd rather be sure or something than be merciful to someone.'

'That's an excellent attitude to have to fight your kind of foe.'

'I don't doubt it, but sometimes the goal numbs his heart. He becomes hard, unfeeling, he doesn't trust anyone. Not even himself. He tests the loyalty of everyone continuously, without giving anyone time to relax. He says that rest is where the worst vices and sins are born from. You have to be careful around him as much as you have to when you're hunting the enemy, and on the long run it can be exhausting.'

Azrael didn't react, but he was thinking of how interesting the encounter might be. They were similar, maybe too similar to go on well with each other. That could go either of two ways. First, nobody would trust the other; everything would come down to either a confrontation or, slightly better, a formal and distant exchange of favors, where the best negotiator would have the upper hand. Second, and somewhat more likely in the mind of the Dragonborn, the two would build a distant connection based on their similar and uncommon characteristics. Had the meeting evolved that way, it might have been a breath of fresh air. Either way, the chances of the Dawnguard taking down the vampires seemed marginally higher than before. Someone with that kind of mentality would have come a long way in solving that matter. That is, if he found subordinates who could keep up with him. Azrael also was like that as a leader, but the people under his command weren't normal. They had chosen a life of isolation, and they were generally ready to do anything. More so with the Brotherhood than the Guild, but it wasn't overly different.

They passed by a clearing where an Orc clad in an armor similar to Celann's was busy showing to a small group of people something he held in his hands. The Orsimer wasn't very young. His voice was gruff and his tone very serious, like an old man's. Matted white hair covered his greenish head and his skin was wrinkled. The people surrounding him were mostly Nords, and they looked intently at the object the Orc held. They were all quite young, with a few exceptions. Azrael figured that the older and probably already skilled individuals were attending a different type of training. The clearing had several chopped trunks used as seats by the trainees and several archery targets near the steep stone face of the mountain, which delimited the back of the clearing.

'Celann,' Azrael called, 'what's the weapon your fellow's using?'

The man turned to the left and looked for a moment. 'A crossbow. It's a weapon used by the Dawnguard of old, which has fallen into disuse in the last eras. Mainly because of its inability to take down large amounts of enemies if not deployed in very large numbers. Have you ever seen one before?'

'I have. Every dwarven automaton has one mounted on its wrist. I've never been hit by one, but I studied the mechanism. I can imagine the damage it can cause.'

'It is particularly useful for taking down vampires. The fiends can appear at any moment, it's better to have your weapon already loaded. The damage in can cause is also quite heavy, as you said. It can take down anything before it gets close, and if a vampire gets close to you, you're dead. The most experienced among us can withstand a frontal attack, but a melee fight with one is always a tough situation to be in.'

 _You don't' say._ Azrael gazed over at where the next turn of the path led them. The trail went back in the direction from which they had come from, but on the higher ground level. Several yards ahead was the gate of the Fort. A huge, wooden portal with steel reinforcements. The stone around was of a lighter color than the dark grey which dominated the chromatics of the castle. Two braziers on steel poles stood to light the place during nighttime. There were a lot of stoves and bonfires scattered around. _Maybe they expect vampires to attack the Fort directly, sooner or later. With the leader they've got, it wouldn't surprise me if they're already prepared in case of attack. They had better be, because with what he had witnessed he knew that that day might come. And it might come a lot quicker than any common and uninformed person would expect._ The vampires seemed scattered and undisciplined, but they probably had a complex power structure behind them.

Azrael took a deep breath. His previous inner harmony had now been replaced by his methodical and systematic mind structure, which calculated everything around him with surgical precision. The icy veil controlled his thoughts, reducing the perception of emotions and other feelings that needed a lot of brainpower to be deciphered. Instead, it drained them to receive mental energy and stored the sensations they caused to be analyzed later. He focused solely on the world around him, concentrating all his attention into the reading, understanding and domination of himself and the world around. By simply looking at Celann, he understood a lot more things than the man could think. He had long since concluded he was a Breton, and had also guessed he was probably a very energetic person when in control of the situation. There mere fact that he had rebelled against the Vigil and had chose a lonely life was proof enough. In case he needed to, Azrael could squeeze information out of him. He understood him. He knew his weaknesses.

There were two young men in a suit of armor similar to the one wore by the other novices waiting outside the door. They were probably standing guard, but they were quite relaxed. One was sitting on the stone stairs, the other leaned against the wall. Azrael saw Celann stiffening a little by his side and quickening his pace. Azrael, in turn, slowed down a little bit. It wasn't any of his business.

'You,' Celann said snappily. 'What are you doing here?'

The two immediately turned and looked at him. Their voices trembled a little. 'Isran told us to stay outside until he's finished with the Vigilant.'

Celann sighed. 'When Isran tells you to stay outside he wants you to do something. Go down to learn the crossbow basics with Durak or down to the yard to train with the axe. I don't want anyone walking about doing nothing.' He spoke firmly and hardly, but there was a note in his voice that showed his understanding of their behavior. His words were Isran's words and he was making sure they would be respected, but he didn't think along those lines. The Dragonborn had assumed, and now he knew, that despite his disagreement with his methods, Celann trusted his leader beyond measure. He would follow him in the jaws of Oblivion.

The two younglings nodded, sharing a glance. 'Yes, Celann.' They walked past him and glimpsed fleetingly at the Dragonborn, only to turn their gaze away as soon as they recognized him. They left, probably wondering what he was doing there.

'Celann,' Azrael called for the third time, 'tell me about that Vigilant Isran's talking to.'

The Breton had to suppress the emotions from the exchange with the two boys and reorganize his feelings. Again, it seemed words were being printed on his forehead as he thought them. 'Tolan?' he said, checking one of the braziers. It was filled with ashes, but there were still some coals in it. 'He's a member of the Vigil. A Nord. He's a fine warrior and a great companion, but he's irritating at times. He needs a place to stay, protection, and people to talk to. He always has to find somewhere to belong. I bet he came here seeking refuge, and will do anything to win Isran's trust back. Tolan was one of fiercer supporters of the Vigil's positions, and he often came to blows with him. Now, his world must be upside down.' He walked towards the portal, clearly with the intention to open it.

'Leave it,' Azrael said. The man turned towards him with a confused gaze, his hand still leaning on the wooden portal. 'I'll go in alone.'

He nodded. 'As you wish, Dragonborn. Isran's right inside, probably still in the main hall. You can't miss him. Good luck.'

The Dragonborn walked up the short stairway leading to the gate. The steps were ruined and eroded, cracked by the water that every winter seeped in and then congealed. Judging by the condition of the stone, the wood should have been completely decomposed. And yet, that gate was standing there. Azrael looked at the grains in the tattered wood, and realized the lumber that made the gate hadn't been cut much earlier than three or four months. That meant that the rumors saying the first members had traveled there in the winter's first days were correct. The hinges of the portal squeaked, but there was no rust on those. They had been put there recently too. An incredible amount of work had been done during cold season.

Azrael was growing curious. He rarely, if ever, grew curious of people as of late, but this Isran surely looked like a gritty individual. He knew how to get things done and knew how to convince people into helping him. If someone like that Vigilant, who had been battling him since forever, was willing to shelter under his wing, it meant he inspired a significant sense of protection. The fact alone that so many people were there, ready to fight an enemy stronger than they could ever become, was proof enough of his great conviction and possibly rhetoric ability. He had managed to make the vampire menace common knowledge, thus facilitating the achievement of his goal. Some people would say it was obvious, since his goal was a noble one, but Azrael didn't side with those people. If that man hadn't cared about the vampire problem, he wouldn't have done anything. His desire was winning his war. That came first. Saving Skyrim was right after. The order couldn't be reversed.

The door opened just enough for the Dragonborn to walk through. He moved his first steps inside, turning just to push one of the gate's wings shut. Celann pulled the other one shut. A brief gust of fresh air had entered, but it wasn't enough to neutralize the nasty stench of humid, so typical of a dark, airless place like that one. Azrael had walked into a small rectangular corridor that worked as an antechamber of sorts. The stone was less damaged than of the outside on the Fort, obviously, but was still covered in wet moss and a weave of spider webs. It was hardly illumined at all, in fact the only light coming in was the weak one coming from the next hall. _A tight space, easy to defend,_ observed the Dragonborn. They really valued security here. _This is the only part that could easily crumble. Not only is it an endless walk to get here, it's also easy to block from the main hall._ The strategies and means of the Dawnguard seemed never-ending. Any foe would be a fool to underestimate them.

The first thing Azrael heard as he entered was a voice. A hoarse, nasal bass. 'Why are you here, Tolan? The Vigilants and I were finished with each other a long time ago.'

The Dovahkiin approached the main hall silently, staying out of the light. It was almost instinctive. The room was circular, large and with a very high ceiling. There were two balconies on the higher levels, overlooking the center. Small stone brinks fitted together created an even floor, which had two semicircular grates near the middle. Banners depicting the rising sun on a black field hung on both sides of every one of the four doors that opened on the hall. Despite its magnificent structure, its sight was rendered less heroic by the amount of barrels, crates, splinters and nails scattered all around the place.

By the time Azrael had finished looking around, another person had spoken. 'You know why I'm here.' The voice of this new person was slightly gruff. 'The Vigilants are under attack everywhere. The vampires are much more dangerous than we believed.' The person talking was standing right in the middle or the room. Azrael looked at his robes for a moment. He knew he was a Vigilant. Celann had said as much. The mage tunic he wore covered him all the way to his feet. Plated vambraces and boots protected his arms and legs and a steel warhammer hung on his back. He kept the hood lowered, showing the bald head with a just a few, thin red hair growing. Nothing overly interesting about him.

On the other hand, the person Tolan was talking too seemed much more intriguing. A Redguard, his skin darker than any other one Azrael had ever seen. He was clad in an ever heavier version of the armor Celann wore, with two large pauldrons and heavy grieves. It wasn't surprising he was the only one donning such a suit; few other people would be able to keep something that heavy on them for long. A black cloak fell down his back, attached to two studs on the shoulders. He brought along a warhammer too. He might despise the Vigilants, but he didn't renounce their legacy. His face was the most intriguing part about him. He was serious, a grimace of annoyance barely made its way to his lips. The clean bald head and coal-black beard gave him a seasoned and severe look. Azrael remembered the sound of his voice. He could couple the sound with the look without any difficulty.

Isran spoke again. 'And now you want to come running to safety with the Dawnguard, is that it?' Azrael could almost feel the Redguard's emotions and thoughts echoing within him. He had felt them so many times himself. 'I remember Carcette telling me repeatedly that Fort Dawnguard is a crumbling ruin, not worth the expense and manpower to repair. I insisted, and it was you who defended her. You called me a radical, a madman. And now that you've stirred up the vampires against you, you come begging for my protection?'

'Isran…' Tolan whispered, 'Carcette is dead. The Hall of Vigilants, everyone… they're all dead. You were right, we were wrong.' His voice might have sound desperate, but it could have just been his tone that made it so. Maybe it was an attempt to instill some compassion in the stonehearted Redguard. 'Isn't that enough for you?'

'Yes, well… I never wanted any of this to happen. I tried to warn all of you,' Isran said, seemingly backing off, but then regained his usual composure. 'I am… Sorry, you know,' he concluded, withdrawing back to an ironic and hostile tone.

Azrael had already spotted him glancing in his direction. He had approached the two quietly, without speaking or making his breath hearable. He didn't want to disrupt the actions. His presence would have altered the equilibrium too much. Tolan, in his passionate attempt to earn the Dawnguard's protection, hadn't heard him at all. He spotted him only upon seeing Isran turn. The Dragonborn caught a sparkle of fear in his eyes, but decided to ignore him for now. He focused on Isran.

'Hmm…' grunted the Redguard, 'the Godslayer, are you?'

'In the flesh.' Despite the thick dunmeri accent lingering in his intonation, the Dragonborn's voice sounded somewhat like Isran's.

Despite the initial confidence he had showed, Azrael noticed the Redguard moving his mouth unclearly without saying anything. He wasn't scared, which was already a positive start, but nonetheless confused. Azrael knew that feeling. Act rashly and continue on a presumption or stop and admit your ignorance on the matter. He didn't think Isran valued knowledge as much as he did, so the choice might have been harder for him. Azrael always chose to inquire. If confidence was required, he preferred to show it through smart and difficult questions, which gave him information and caged other people in the unbreakable prison of their own words. The Redguard didn't seem to usually follow the same plan, but this time he had to.

'Well…' he said, buying himself some more time. 'I didn't expect the Dragonborn of legend to step inside here, of all people.' The whole phrase, and specifically the mention of Dragonborn of legend was very subtly ironic. Maybe Isran had too understood he was speaking to someone made of his same cloth. 'Judging by what I've heard, your presence here means a lot. You're not exactly famous for helping others in need. I wonder though, what could have brought you here.'

'I'm seeking information.'

'As I expected.' The Redguard sighed, but he didn't seem angry or irritated. 'Still, I don't think you expect something for nothing. I hope what you'll learn here will aid you in killing some vampires for us. So we both gain. We too have a fire within ourselves to kill the fiends, but as you can see we're not ready yet. We've just only started rebuilding the order. It will take time. But tell me, why have you come here?'

To them, and probably only to them, it wasn't a repetition. 'I've run into one of your foes, two weeks ago,' Azrael said. 'He was strong. He nearly killed me. He was a lone hunter, but I suspect there are more out there. Their activity does seem to be increasing.'

'At least you're not blind. I don't suppose you'd want to help us under my conditions, so say exactly what you need to and maybe we can do something about it. It will help us either way.'

The Dragonborn was unexpectedly content with his encounter. Someone able to use his head and had a realistic way of seeing what lied around him. Isran didn't waste his time trying to convince him into joining or doing things for him. He knew it wouldn't work. What he maybe knew, was that leaving Azrael the freedom to act might produce better results than giving him orders. Maybe he too was like this. A leader, an effective one, but also someone able to use the their resolve and decisiveness to make quick decisions and conduct solo missions like no one else can. Azrael was like this. He didn't mind doing something for others, as long as he wasn't being controlled.

'I think,' he said, 'the vampires have a plan. If not, at least an objective. I was wondering if you had managed to gather something about this.'

'Sadly, no,' the Redguard said, shaking his head negatively. 'It would interest me as much as it would interest you. I think they have an objective too. Some of their attacks seem organized. A satire of coordination, but still. I share your fear. There's someone behind these vampires, and that someone is plotting his evil, terrible plans in the shadow while we're here speculating.'

'Whoever he or she may be, I might have read through part of his scheme. All the intense vampire activity has taken place in the southern part of the Pale. At least, the one supposedly out of the ordinary.'

'Including the Hall of the Vigilant…' Isran said, as if thinking aloud. He pinched his eyebrows and kept that stern expression for a few moments. He stroke his beard, murmuring. 'Yes, it does make sense. I guess news arrives to you faster than it does to us.' He finished that sentence, and then a spark ignited his black irises for a moment. He gave the Dragonborn a short and conspiratorial glance and then turned to the Vigilant, who had been standing there mute for the whole time. 'Tolan,' he said, 'tell him about, what was it, Dimhollow?'

The Nord gave him back a startled gaze. 'Isran…' he muttered, 'do you really trust this disbeliever and skeptic with this amount of knowledge? Are you insane?'

The Redguard stiffened imperceptivity, but Azrael didn't react. The Vigilant's words were harsh, but he had heard them so many times he had grown accustomed. There's nothing like assuming an insult as a neutral label. His indifference seemed to anger the Nord even, but Isran was faster to react. 'Tolan, what you've said is ungrateful and reckless at the same time.'

'It wasn't!' the Vigilant hissed, moving by one step in Azrael's direction and pointing a finger towards his concealed face. 'How can you trust this monster, Isran? All Dark Elves are Daedra worshippers, and that's bad enough, but not him. A heartless murderer, that's who you're dealing with. An iconoclast!'

'He might be, but he's not the villain in this tale.' Isran trod forward himself and stood between the Vigilant and the Dovahkiin, letting his words sink in. 'The Dragonborn is here seeking our help and granting us aid. Right now there's a greater evil that needs to be banished. We can't afford to fight one another. Besides, what has he done? Dealt with the Daedra? There are people that would use their power to shred the world, while he only uses it for his own safety. Killed people, maybe innocents? We might be forced to do that as well, one day. For this once, Tolan, put your judgment aside. Your hatred fuels you, and that's good, but don't let it out against the ones who mean good. It's a different way from the one the Vigil has taught us, I can relate, but try to understand.'

Azrael listened, and his admiration for the Redguard grew with every passing second. In the previous conversation, he had proved his confidence and competence. Now he was proving his great powers of persuasion. The two things he had predicted he would possess. Tolan was still reticent however, despite everything Isran had told him. The Dragonborn wondered if he had even listened to his words, which were the wisest he had heard in a long time. Too long. But they hadn't been enough, apparently.

'I don't care how desperate the situation is,' replied the Vigilant. 'I'll not deal with him and I won't give him—'

'Silence.' Azrael waited for the sound of his words to stop echoing in the hall. 'Nothing will come of your resistance. Your friend,' he said giving a nod towards Isran, 'knows that. If I wanted to do anything to you, he wouldn't stop me. He wouldn't risk it. You'd better start talking, or I'll strangle you with the sinews of your limbs.'

Tolan stepped right back and a little bit to the side, hiding behind Isran's figure. Azrael looked at his trembling hands, shaking like branches in the autumn winds. He was mortally afraid. The only thing setting him apart from a true fanatic was that he feared death, something that the Dragonborn was being able to exploit quite effectively. The Redguard slowly moved back to his previous position, now that his mediation wasn't needed anymore. The Vigilant raised his anxious eyes towards the Dragonborn. 'Yes,' he mumbled, submissively, 'it is true, what Isran said. Dimhollow crypt. A cave located in the southern region of the Pale. Brother Adalvald was sure it held some long-lost vampire artifact of some kind. We didn't listen to him any more than we did Isran. He was at the Hall when it was attacked…'

Isran nodded coolly, his way of expressing appreciation. Azrael, however, was a bit lost in his own reasoning. His idea of the Hall being a punitive expedition, already confirmed by the reanimated vampire, had been practically verified by what Tolan had just said. _There was someone investigating in strange vampire activity. Months, maybe weeks later, the Hall was attacked and destroyed. This is far away from being a coincidence. There something big on the line here,_ Azrael said to himself. _And I'm about to find out. This lead seems promising._

'Is this enough for you, Dragonborn?' Isran asked, brining him back to reality. 'With any luck, the fiends might still be there.'

'I… I would like to say something,' the Vigilant stammered. 'Isran, this killer goes to Dimhollow only if I can accompany him.'

'Tolan, I don't think that's a good idea,' the Redguard warned him, giving him a doubting and serious glance. 'You Vigilants were never trained for—'

'I know what you think of us!' he screamed in his face. 'You think we're soft, that we're cowards. You think our deaths proved our weakness! Stendarr grant that you do not have to face the same test and be found wanting. I'm going to Dimhollow Crypt. Perhaps I can be of some small assistance to you in keeping this maverick under control.'

A mocking half-smile played out on Isran's lips for a moment. 'You should ask the Dragonborn about it. I have no authority over the company he brings along in his journey. If he agrees, good. If he doesn't you're free to go.' Foreseeing the Vigilant reluctance to ask a question directly to the Dovahkiin, the Redguard acted as the moderator once again. 'Godslayer, whatever you want. Can Tolan come with you?'

Azrael shrugged. 'As long as he doesn't get in my way. Once I'm done, I'll send him back with anything I have learned. My return here is not guaranteed.'

Isran turned towards the Nord. 'Tolan?'

'Fine by me,' he said. 'I'll just keep an eye on him.'

Azrael refrained from sighing. He exchanged a meaningful glance with the Redguard, who seemed to share his same fear. _This fool is overzealous. Sooner or later, he'll do something remarkably stupid. The best way to prevent any damage was to keep an eye on him just as he planned to do with me._ Nevertheless, Azrael saw the Vigilant's doom hanging above his balding head. _I'll have to kill him before the end of this journey. No matter._

* * *

A/N: I feel like there aren't that many people cut from Azrael's cloth, but Isran might just be one of them. He's the character on which I focused on the most here; I spent quite some time revising his reactions and responses, for a number of reasons. There's very few one liners I've enjoyed writing more than "The Godslayer, are you?".

Also, fun fact, the Thieves Guild's section of the chapter was originally the beginning of a once-shot idea that was scraped. It revolved around Delvin and Vex, but it never came off satisfying. Here, with some tweaks, it puts some emphasis on the extremely large scale of the vampire problem and gave me an opportunity to investigate Azrael a bit more. But if you think you've seen the worst of him, I'm afraid that's not even close.

Of course, thanks to everyone who reviewed, favorited, followed, wrote me and read and whatever. I'm glad you're liking this.

See you in the next chapter.


	5. Chapter IV: A Fresh Trail

Chapter IV: _A Fresh Trail_

* * *

The muscles tightened, raising the limp fingers which clenched into a fist. The armored digits scratched the palms producing a sharp, high-pitched sound. Azrael loosened the tension, allowing his hands to open again. He had to check. The wind blew cold, and even his magical protections sometimes weren't enough to shield him. While resting, he knew that his body temperature went down a bit. Every bit counted, when he was outside. The first sign of frostbite were the muscles stiffening, losing the ability to be contracted at will. Sometimes, in doubt, he moved his fingers. Those were enough. If they were able to move, the entirety of the body was as well.

The Dragonborn was kneeling down on the frosty rocks, his hood lowered on his forehead and his cloak wrapped around him like a mantle. At times, the sudden change in the wind's direction carried the heat of the bonfire towards him. The fire was dying out, as he had planned. It was almost dawn, and they would have been going soon. The last two logs sizzled still, mostly burnt and kept aflame only by the searing embers burning underneath them. The gusts sometimes blew strongly enough to almost put them out, but that hadn't happened yet. Tolan's bedroll was empty, covered with snow. The traveling bag of the Vigilant lay near it, wet with melted sleet and. A worn out torch came out from the flap closing the sack. The remains of the previous day's dinner were scattered around the fire: The bones of Azrael's roasted rabbit and the slim straps of sinews and lard Tolan hadn't been able to chew, although he would have most certainly liked to. The Vigilant might have been a Nord, but he suffered the cold too, and the Dragonborn's pace was clearly too swift for him. Still, he stoically followed him. That much Azrael had to admit.

Tolan was standing on the rim of the ravine left of their encampment, staring through the snowstorm in the general direction of Dawnstar with his arms folded and his legs trembling. The thin reddish hair were coated with snow, which melted and dripped down in the tunic's hood. The hammer rested motionless on his back. His boots were worn by the days of travel, the steel plating covered in thin rust and grazed in a few places. _I'd wager that, when he insisted to come with me, he expected something different,_ Azrael thought, looking at the Vigilant from under the dripping rim of his lowered hood. _Maybe he expected to walk for days on red carpets, put down at the passing of the Dragonborn._ But the cruel reality was that most people rarely, if ever, had the chance to see the Dovahkiin with their own eyes. He preferred keeping far from the cities, and when possible even from the main roads. Azrael had marked every small pathway and narrow trail across the province, in the attempt to never again be seen on the highways. That wasn't the journey Tolan had likely anticipated.

Azrael saw him turning his head in his direction, very slightly. 'I know you're awake,' he said. He must had heard the sound of the metal scratching. 'You're always awake. Every time it's my turn to stay guard, you're awake. Do you ever sleep? Do you even feel the need to sleep, you elf-shaped daemon?'

'I do. If there isn't anyone wanting to kill me in my vicinity.'

The Vigilant turned towards him. His feet moved with difficulty in the heap of snow where they were stuck. The snowstorm hid him somewhat, but not enough to conceal the glare he was stealing at the Dragonborn. 'You have quite some nerve to talk to me like that. You suggest I might have the will to kill you, after all you've done? I should be the one worried about you killing me, not the opposite. I have my rules and I have my morals, which I'll not break no matter what. And you? What constrains you to keep me alive? Nothing.' Azrael was catching glimpses of his expression as he spoke, and there were unsteady changes in his features. Sometimes angry, some other nervous. He wasn't quite sure where Tolan was going in that confession of weakness. 'You could be at my neck anytime, but I have to keep an eye on you. I know the likes of you. Always searching for more power, more ways to control those around you.'

A hollow and mirthless titter escaped the Dragonborn's throat. He wasn't surprised at seeing the Vigilant's startled face after his snigger. It was his first laugh since they had met. 'Don't concern yourself with such justifications,' he said. It was the truth. Even Celann had seen past his attempts at seeking protection, and he had warned him Tolan might get overzealous trying to regain Isran's trust. Azrael wasn't good at reading emotional flows, but no one could present him with a lie and get away with it. Especially since he wasn't afraid of hurting others in order to reach the truth. 'Your only reason to be here, with me, in this snowy wasteland is the dream of having a new place to belong. And if it's in some absurd way reassuring, yes, I will probably be forced to kill you at some point.'

The man turned the other way, staring into the snowy ravine in front of him. Azrael guessed he bleached or quaked in some way, but he didn't see. The snowflakes blew in his face and the faint light of the dawn didn't help either. Azrael cocked both eyebrows slightly, letting loose of the small amount of tension that had gathered in his mind. _Anger,_ he quickly deciphered. _I don't know why I should be angry at him, but I am. How strange._ He cast a glance at the Vigilant, who was clearly uninterested in him, and thus continued with his introspection. _Rage, clearly strain. I'm worried about something. And that something is what lies ahead of me. Nothing wrong there, it's a dangerous foe I'm battling, but my mind had better be clear when I fight them._ He inhaled deeply, closing his eyes and holding the chilly air in his lungs long enough to feel the cold seeping into every last cranny of his bronchi. In that moment, while completely relaxed, several things came to his mind. One in particular was a welcome idea.

'Tolan.'

'Yes?' he said, irritated. 'What do you want?'

'What do you know about Dimhollow and what did your comrades do to discover it?'

'What kind of a question is that?' The Vigilant turned fully, looking down at Azrael. The weak flames still blazing around the bonfire cast strange lights on his face. 'Your demands become more absurd with every passing day. What on Nirn do you want to know? Why do you concern yourself with the Vigil? You don't care about it. You don't—'

'Answer me.' The Dragonborn spoke those words with his eyes still closed, listening to how his voice echoed first in his chest and then spread from his mouth, hushed by the snowfall. The hard and lapidary tone seemed to serve the right purpose.

'Fine, fine… I'll tell you.' The Vigilant turned slightly, facing the sloping path with a blank gaze. 'We don't know much about Dimhollow. We've always been aware of its presence, but we disregarded it as a generic Nordic crypt. Recently, around a year ago, Brother Adalvald began investigating the crypt. It was a moment of great crisis within the Vigil,' he said slowly, as if reluctant to admit it, 'and many were leaving our ranks. Isran and Celann among them. Adalvald stated that he didn't trust the records of previous explorations, and took it upon himself to inspect all the places he could. Dimhollow was one of the first places he visited. He supposedly found signs of dark and ancient magic. Something related to vampires. We didn't pay much attention to him, he always exaggerated things. Turns out, he might have been right. Maybe not even him knew of how big the threat actually was.'

Azrael's eyebrows furrowed vaguely. 'You're telling me the vampires which annihilated your headquarter came out of the crypt?'

The Vigilant seemed to hesitate. Azrael heard a half-word been spoken, but then nothing more than the moan of the wind. The man crossed his hands behind his back, still looking up the hill, where the entrance to the crypt was supposed to be. 'That is what we believe, yes,' he said eventually. 'We thought the attack on the Hall was merely an isolated case, however. Now that I know more places have been attacked, I don't feel that's the case. Adavald started being obsessed with what he had found out, he insisted the vampires could have surprised us at any moment. He was right, but the others didn't believe him enough to start arranging defenses. He inspected the place several times. I don't think he survived the attack. My fear is that one day he ventured too deeply in those ruins and awakened the fiends.'

'Vampires don't usually remain in a dormant state for long periods.'

Tolan turned fully, this time looking at the Dragonborn with genuine curiosity. Azrael realized at once that, like with everyone, he hadn't been able to follow his reasoning. His thoughts were often too tortuous for others to follow. They took into account enormous quantities of notions and experience, which when combined led him to perform rational leaps from one thing to another, at times a completely unrelated concept. Babette, Karliah and very few others were able to keep up with his pace. At times just barely.

The Vigilant surely didn't. His gaze was empty, vague. 'I don't think I'm following…'

'Of course you don't,' Azrael said dismissively. 'You and your comrades are afraid of having waked an ancient group of vampires. However, it's more probable that the group you've stumbled upon were looking for something in the crypt as well. Adavald believed the cave to contain an artifact, you said it yourself. What if he disturbed them as they were searching? What if he indirectly lured them to the crypt? They might have destroyed the Hall to take revenge while also disposing of a possible annoyance.'

'It's not "more probable", it's just what you think.' The man clearly wasn't very much into the Dragonborn's assumption. He preferred factual truth, because he didn't really trust his own conclusions. _A feeling of inferiority he rationalizes by trying to demolish the deductions of others,_ Azrael thought. It wasn't the first time he encountered someone of that kind, but few of those were as stubborn as the Vigilant was. In truth, he was probably more adaptable than what he showed the Dovahkiin, since he wanted to keep up the indomitable paladin charade.

'It's what I think after the analysis of facts and reliable sources,' Azrael clarified, keeping his voice low. 'No matter, your opinion doesn't concern me in any particular way. The only thing I need of you is confirmation that your comrade Adavald did look into the crypt.'

'Yes, that much I am sure of.'

'At least there's that. Come on,' the Dragonborn said, leaning his fists on the ground and pushing, rising slowly. 'Let us proceed. The entrance isn't far.'

Azrael stood on his feet and cracked his neck. He extended both arms and crossed his fingers, stretching and cracking those too. He unwrapped the cloak from around his body and shook off the snow that had piled on his shoulders. He glimpsed at the last slope and then laid his lost gaze on Tolan, who was furling his bedroll. The Vigilant was facing him. He never turned his back to the Dragonborn. Azrael was not paying much attention to him however. The pieces of the puzzle were starting to finally fall together in a truly logical way, that looked like the work of a rational being. _The Vigil did indeed disturb them. They walked right into the place where they hid something. Perhaps it was Adavald that pointed the way. No way of knowing. Nevertheless, the Vigilants probably disturbed them and the destruction of the Hall was indeed deliberate._ Everything looked guided by a pattern, with its premises being an impulsive nature and a shrewd sharpness. _This cavern might have been the focus of their activity all along. Being in the center of the area struck the most, it would make sense._ It was as if the vampires were awakening after a long time spent sleeping.

He wasn't sure about what to do. He couldn't come up with a detailed plan yet. He knew not what they could find inside Dimhollow, or what insight that might have brought into the issue. Maybe the artifact lying inside was the solution to the problem, maybe just the beginning of a long and difficult war or maybe a whole new problem to cope with. Azrael couldn't say, and he preferred sparing his imagination for when he would need to come up with a detailed strategy quickly. In that instance, adaptability was more important than a detailed plan. He had already revised his decision to hide everything from the Dawnguard. He wasn't too sure of what the organization could do on its own, but with Isran as the leader and himself at their back, they could have achieved a great deal and defeated an enemy stronger than they were. Depending on what kind of resources he gathered in the cave, he might have shared his discoveries with the Dawnguard. He wasn't as suspicious as before, since he now knew Isran would respect his independence and restrain from controlling him.

The whole picture wasn't bright, however. Everything had proceeded well, but there was still a mystery of unknown scope to reveal. All he knew were names, hints, small evidence that had been left behind by his enemy by accident. He wasn't used to it. Every person he had tracked down either left clearer traces or, on the contrary, tried to hide them. With time, he had become good at following those kind of leads. The vampires weren't even considering someone might have been on their tails. The Dragonborn prowling behind them was the last of their concerns, and that rendered their actions difficult to read or follow. Isran was doing a smart thing in preparing his men and waiting. The vampires would have come to him sooner or later, it was inevitable, and he preferred to let them bring the fight to him. His fatal blow wouldn't have been a strike from the shadows, but the deadliest of counterattacks. The effectiveness of the Dawnguard could be measured in its ability to endure their enemy's assault. Azrael's plan was undoubtedly safer, but exponentially more difficult to pull off. Isran's game had calculated losses involved. Azrael was planning to win everything while losing nothing.

'Are we going?'

He moved his head slowly in Tolan's direction. The man was looking towards him. He had his rucksack on his back and was clearly ready to go. He had put on the hood, trying to protect his face from the snow. The wet bedroll was tied to the side of the backpack, with a torch covered in wax on the other side. Between the Vigilant's equipment and experience with undead and Azrael's knowledge and combat expertise, they stood a decent chance even against a hypothetically large number of enemies. Their odds weren't at all good against an adversary of the kind they were most likely about to meet, but weren't catastrophic either. The Dragonborn's only concern was Tolan himself. He feared he could do something overly stupid. _He's a hindrance more than actual help_ , he thought more than once. That was why he usually worked alone. The concept of mate or ally was one and the same with obstacle and burden. _If he does do something that ruins my plans, he can play the meat shield. I'm not risking my life to save him._

Azrael gave a nod and stepped ahead of the Vigilant, making it very clear he would go first. There was a mutual agreement about their positions during traveling time. Tolan didn't trust Azrael walking behind him, always with a clear strike at his back, while the Dunmer didn't really care whether he was followed right behind by the man or not. He would have heard the warhammer being grabbed, and there was no way the Vigilant could grab a dagger somewhere without him noticing. Even so, his armor was thick enough to prevent any daggers from piercing deeply enough to inflict a deadly wound, and a strike to the neck would require a precision and ability Tolan didn't have. The Dragonborn could dictate the rules of their cat and mouse game. The worst thing the man could do was drowning him in complaints and sanctimonious reproaches. _Irritating, but not lethal,_ he thought, casting a glance up the hill to see how the pathway went as they climbed up the mountain.

'Azrael.' The Dragonborn was expecting him to say something, but of all the things he could have said his name was the last things he'd have expected. He turned his head around just enough to signal he was listening and then turned back to watching the road. 'Well…' continued the man, his voice somewhat insecure, 'may I ask you a question?'

'You already have.'

'What…'

'Nevermind. Ask away.'

'Aside from, well, everything we know… What do expect to find inside the crypt? Have your thought of anything, planned… Well…'

'Are you asking me if I already visualized how the situation will turn out?' he brashly rephrased. There was a pattern behind the man's words, one that was clear to the Dragonborn just from his tone. Tolan was worried, and his attempts to hide it had worked up to a point, but not forever.

'Yes, in a way.' The Dunmer heard him making two hurried steps, getting closer to him. 'I'm worried that what hides inside the cave might be a lot more dangerous than we believed. I fear it will be something too powerful or enigmatic for us to fully understand. There were experts among the members of the Vigil, but they can't help us.'

'The dead have the great virtue of remaining silent, most of the times. As far as experts are concerned, I think you mistrusted me precisely for my knowledge of unhallowed artifacts.'

'Do you really know that much?'

'Enough for me to feel safe when I have to work with or around one.'

Tolan paused briefly, letting the previous sentences sink in. Azrael had the suspect he was thinking of something else, and he wasn't wrong. 'Brother Adavald,' the Vigilant said after a moment of silence, 'was very interested in cursed objects and blasphemous relics. He had a strange view of the Vigil, and believed we had to fight evil with evil, so to speak. He believed that with Stendarr's guidance, we'd be able to wield unholy weapons and items without falling prey to the dark forces filling the object. His faith was unparalleled, but he was regarded with caution for his attitude towards dark artifacts. Every time we stumbled upon one and tried to destroy it, he'd remark we ought to keep it and use it to fight the cursed creatures that had used them.'

'Cut to the chase,' Azrael said, coldly.

The Vigilant obeyed and didn't complain, surprisingly enough. 'Every time I talk to you, his words are echoing in my head. He was there when Carcette tried to take that Daedric artifact from you, and he was the only one insisting you should be left on your own, to fight your own fights, on condition you didn't meddle in the Vigil's matters. Your should have seen him. He told the Keeper off for what she had done, he shouted at us all claiming we were ignoring our true goal and focusing on negligible matters. Of course, we replied that an Oblivion-spawned object loose of our world wasn't negligible, and it was then that he gave this very convincing apology of your actions. He talked for a few minutes, and everyone listened with bated breath. After he had finished, we decided to never pursue you ever again and to stay out of your way. Even with Adavald gone, I still hear him speak.'

Azrael wasn't too sure of what the hidden message behind those words. _Is he trying to trick me into lowering my guard or is that just an attempt to create a link with me?_ He knew for a fact Tolan was a person that automatically searched for common ground, but he was also very tied to his own convictions and beliefs. His end wasn't clear. There were a number of reasons he might have told him that. He might have felt the need to share that experience and he happened to be the only person around. He might have wanted to create a bond with him, something to unite them after those long days of travel without any peaceful interaction. He might have also been acting out of fear, searching for a way to push Azrael's threats of killing him a bit further away. _He obviously wants something from me; or he's just trying to manipulate me._ He wasn't too sure of what the best answer would have been either, since that little story's purpose wasn't at all clear to him.

'Marvelous,' he said sharply, choosing to inquire further, 'and what was the point of all that rambling?'

'That's all you have to say?' the Vigilant asked, in a reproachful manner. 'I try to open up with you, my worst current enemy, and that is all you say? I thought you understood me.'

'Well, I don't. You're a walking contradiction, Tolan. You have a desire to be independent and self-reliant and you show it in your every action, but you simultaneously search for an outer authority to follow. Case in point, you're treating me in such an ambiguous way I don't know what to say to you. I don't even know what to do. So I keep my guard up. It's the only thing that's kept me alive so far, and I presume it will continue to do so.'

'You think everything is said for a reason, don't you? Everyone has to have a good enough motive to say something, isn't it? You're a cold and ruthless—'

'Yes, I know,' he cut him off. 'Now shut that gutter you've got for a mouth and keep walking.'

There was a stone bridge that connected the path they were walking with the other side of the small cleft in the rocky terrain separating them from the mountainside. As they had went up the hill, the trees had began to diminish and the landscape had gradually become more rocky and harsh. The pathway they had followed was merely a ridge in the mountainside. The stone barrier went unevenly upwards, but a few yards ahead of them it took a particular shape, as in a crest overlooking some kind of hole. Azrael looked around, first casting a discrete glance beyond his shoulders to see what Tolan was up to; the Vigilant kept his head down and both hands rigidly stuck in the folds of the tunic, protected from the cold. He then swept his gaze around, although there was very little to see in the raging snowstorm. Lastly, he looked at the crest. _That's it. The entry to Dimhollow Crypt._ It was an unassuming hole, large enough for a big person to just barely squeeze in. He would have to bend down or crouch to get in. _Nothing large could go through that. Either the artifact was really small or there's another way into this place no one has found. Not yet._

He checked for prints or any signs of recent activity left in the snow. There weren't any. It wasn't overly telling in that weather. Any tracks left on the terrain would be covered and hidden completely in a few minutes. Their own tracks would disappear shortly after. The wind was blowing the flakes inside the cavity, so that wasn't reliable either. The Dragonborn focused out of his body for a moment, sensing the magical presence around him, but there hadn't been any recent alterations. Overall, no one had gone through there in the immediate past and no one had cast spell around that area for at least a day. _Nothing overly revealing, but at least the area around is clean. Nobody knows what could lurk inside, though._

He walked carefully on the stone slab connecting the pathway to the entrance, tilting his head leftwards to take a glimpse inside the hollow. The darkness inside was utter. It looked thick. The faint light coming from the outside didn't brighten the passage other than its first few feet and no longer. Azrael moved closer and listened. He didn't hear anything. There could have been any number or sounds coming from the depths of the hollow, but the moaning of the wind rendered it impossible to perceive any of them. _Going in blind. Not something I'm a fan of._ He wasn't afraid for himself, since he trusted in his abilities, but for Tolan. The man could have taken his own, dumb decisions and ruin an already shaky approach. As much as he tried to clear his mind of that suggestion, that always managed to come back up to the surface.

'This is where we go in?' the Vigilant asked from behind.

'I suppose.' The Dragonborn turned around slightly, looming over the man. 'And, Tolan, once inside you do what I say when I say it. Clear?'

'Yes,' he answered, with a fearful irritation that was half fake. 'It's all perfectly clear. Like I have a choice, anyway.'

'How perceptive of you.'

Azrael put his hand on the low ceiling of the passageway and turned around, staring into the darkness. Different flows of thoughts were rushing through his mind. One was focusing on predictions and calculations on what to expect once inside. The next was busy deciphering the restless tone in the Vigilant's voice and yet another making a quick recap of everything that he had brought along, should be need any of it. The vial with Colette's potion was safely tucked away still, Urag's scroll was near his hip and everything else he needed was either in the bandoleers or in the black leather pouches on his belt. What he didn't realized was that, while his mind was busy in its intense activity, he had stopped walking forward. He was motionless, still with a hand on the ceiling, not proceeding by an inch. He didn't worry. It happened to him, when there were no dangers around.

Azrael felt a strong push on his right shoulder, a force that tried to drive him downwards. He reacted at once, resisting the strength of the thrust and moving away so that a next hit wouldn't be able to reach him. His left shoulder almost touched the stone wall and he felt quick thuds coming from right beside him. Footsteps, of someone running. He was facing the cavern, so all he could see was the utter darkness of the passage, but one thing was very clear to him. _Tolan has shoved me aside and is running onward._ His muscles all locked up tight at his command.

The first impulse coming from his gut was to immediately run after the man and suffocate him by stuffing his own severed fingers into his throat, but cold calculation took over in no time. Azrael was used to the impulses coming from his body and had learned to read them. The information coming from those was invaluable, but their decisions weren't always the wisest. He learned a lot of things about himself just by listening to his body, especially since he was severely out of touch with his feelings. By deciphering the inner motions of his body, he could identity the emotions that would have later generated feelings. In that moment, the emotion he felt was rage and feeling that would have shortly spawned from it was hatred and disdain. He listened to them both, he allowed his inner daemons to talk freely and express their position. The mind took the necessary precautions then. Right now, chasing after him could have led to his demise. There might have been drops, slopes, enemies hiding around. Too high a risk. _I have to be careful, but I also have to reach the artifact before Tolan does. I wonder if he hid something from me and is now trying to do something very specific which he hasn't told me about. I don't think so, however._ There was little point in going on wondering and making plans, though. _I need to move. Now._

Azrael lurked swiftly and stealthily through the narrow passage. The congealed snow cracked softly under his light steps. He extended a hand soon after having moved his first few paces, keeping the palm against the wall. A light would have obviously been useful inside there, but again, the risk was too high. He much preferred striding within that obscure, claustrophobic hollow in the dark than being jumped upon by hungry vampires. He needed to stay alert for the end of the corridor and the eventual door or entry to a different space, but that didn't look like an issue. _This place is so tight I can feel the other wall right beside me._ The air itself felt compressed and caged.

His hand found a turn in the tunnel, and he followed it. As soon as he followed, he caught a glimpse of something he didn't like at all. The flash of a fading light. The light was warm and yellow. A torch fueled with oil without the slightest doubt. _Tolan…_ the Dragonborn thought with a sigh of disbelief, _how can a suspicious person like you get so reckless? Anyone could have got the jump on you while you lit the torch, and now they're going to spot you immediately anyway. This is a Nordic ruin, if the vampires don't kill you the Draugrs will take care you do._ The Vigilant had just disappeared behind the next corner, of which the Dragonborn now knew the exact position, and he was undoubtedly going to descend deeper into the cave. Azrael had his reasons to be skeptical of his chances of success, but again he didn't chase after him. He just had to stay on the right track, which didn't seem to difficult as long as the way was one, linear passage.

As he treaded he tried to piece together the why of Tolan's sudden move. Still, the only rational solution was that he knew something the Dragonborn didn't. He had probably withheld information from him. While that might have been the most sensible option, it seemed strange to Azrael. The man hadn't exactly demonstrated an incredible amount of coherency or self-control, so he might have just rushed forward in the attempt to reach whatever lay deeper inside before the Dovahkiin or to simply get away from him. _That also sounds reasonable,_ he thought, pondering. _He got scared for less dangerous things than someone threatening him of killing him. Maybe this was his plan all along. Wait for an opportune moment to disappear, perhaps bring the information back to the Dawnguard and buy their trust…_ His trail of thought scattered when he was faced with a dip in the pathway and then a downward slope. Upon reaching the end, the terrain went upwards and regained the lost height. However, Azrael noticed the rocks around him shimmering weakly as if touched by a very weak light. He looked up. There seemed to be a pale light coming from beyond the angle. He quickened his pace, careful not to make too much noise.

A shrill, piercing scream reached his ears. It was nothing a human could ever produce. It was a wail of agony and anguish like he had never heard before in his long career of killing people. The vibrations shook the rock and the very ground under his feet. _A male voice,_ he realized, _but_ _that couldn't have been Tolan. I refuse to believe it._ But if that wasn't him, there was a worse scenario ahead than the one he thought. Or a better one. He didn't know yet. _That is the cry of a vampire, that I'm willing to assume. But he might have just killed one and more are leaping to his throat right now or there was only one in that area and he's victorious._ And even with that inconclusive stream of thought, one thing was rather clear to him. _I need to hurry._

The passageway sloped again, but now there were more interesting things that kept him occupied as he sneaked his way deeper into the cave. Sounds. Ever since the earsplitting shriek had vanished, others faint echoes had started coming. Resonant, ringing noises. He spent some time trying to make out what they were before jumping to conclusions, but his original idea was soon confirmed by what he could make out. Those were the sounds of metal weapons crashing against one another. The rhythm could have been coherent with the size and weight of the weapons that were probably being used. The noise came once every few seconds or so, and it was safe to assume that was probably the speed at which Tolan swung his warhammer.

New sounds, recognizable ones. A clear echo of the sizzling hiss of a fire spell, a powerful blare and then another scream, less inhuman than the previous but still quite unnatural. Azrael felt the magicka alter in a place not too far away from him, the same place where the spellcaster had to be. Now he had a clearer outlook of the battle. For once, there obviously was someone else in the room, and Tolan had probably killed him or her too. Second, there were more enemies still. This time the ringing of the weapons bouncing off one another was more frantic and at double the rhythm it had before. No more strange sounds, so the Vigilant had probably given up casting spells. The ethereal energies were static, meaning he wasn't channeling anything either. The Dragonborn had a decent feeling about the fight. _If I arrive there when he's still occupied, I can stop him and make him talk. That little escape will end up being a waste of his breath._ He just needed him to survive.

But that didn't happen. A moment later, just when he was reaching the end of the path and entering into the next area, he heard a very familiar sound. The sound of a blade piercing flesh. He waited for the scream, but absolutely nothing resembling a yell came. Instead, he heard a chocked moan of pain. This time it was overly human. He felt his jaws stiffening from the flash of rage that quickly stormed through his mind, but he regained his composure soon enough. He used the energy of that sudden emotional burst to grip the rocks on both sides of the passage and come to the end of the duct, which ended in an opening to a large Nordic hall in ruins. He looked down at the only light source in the room.

He saw Tolan's body hit the ground. He also heard the muffled thud.

The Dragonborn was in a big Nordic hall which had suffered much more damage than many others he had visited. Most of them were deep inside the mountains, while this one apparently was on the surface level. The ceiling had warped and cracked, falling inside the hollow underneath. Maybe the work of the elements and the endless winters it had endured. The fracture that ran across the entire ceiling was jagged, large enough for a few snow flakes to pass through and cover a section of the floor in white. The weak, grim light of the clouded sky seeped through, brightening the area just enough to distinguish the shapes of the few things inside. The center of the room caved in, forming a black pit where a stream of water fell down. The watercourse came from the back of the hall, from a crack in the stone wall. A ruined tower stood near the wall, on the right of the stream, and was connected to the main flat ground by a stony bridge that looked similar to the one outside.

Azrael observed more intently how exactly he could manage to go around the collapsed center and reach the other side, where the fight had just happened. _There's snow here,_ he realized at once, _so… There they are._ Tolan's prints were right under his own nose. They remained near the left wall and continued on a ridge, one that presumably continued all the way to his corpse's position. Even that section of the chamber was damaged; the pillars and monoliths had been eroded and the floor was uneven. Precisely in the middle between the two biggest monuments lay Tolan's body. The torch he carried had fell down but hadn't extinguished and kept brightening up the circular area around it. The Dragonborn barely saw something in the background, which was probably a wooden portal like the ones frequently found in ruins like those. Closer, though, there were three more things that attracted his attention.

The Vigilant's lied with his back on the snowy ground and the arms convulsively thrown backwards. The hammer lay a few feet away, the pointed tip covered in blood. Next to the body stood two lean figures, garbed in a greyish armor. _Vampires… Not wearing the armor the Altmer had, but a more basic one. Like the one we found at the Hall of the Vigilant._ And, also similarly to what he had found at the Hall, the one standing on Tolan's left was accompanied by one of those Death Hounds he had already seen. The creature was breathing chilly air from its deformed nostrils and Azrael could hear it breathing from where he stood, which was a fair distance away. He followed Tolan's footsteps and moved forward, flattening against the wall and moving as quickly as he could on the ridge without being seen. The two vampires were absorbed in a conversation, which he only now started to hear clearly. They were too captivated by each other's words to be able to pay any attention to him.

The first one was a male, bent over on the Vigilant's body. The light of the torch brightened up his mocking leer. 'These Vigilants never know when to give up. I thought we'd taught them enough of a lesson at their Hall.' He looked down, taken by the blood stream that flowed away from the man's lifeless body.

The other one, a female, was a little more aware of her surroundings but not enough to notice the Dragonborn nearing them. Azrael listened closely to her words. 'To come here alone…' she sad, spitefully. 'A fool like all the rest of them.'

'He fought well though,' conceded her companion. 'Jeron and Bresoth were no match for him.'

She clearly wasn't thinking along his same line. She grimaced disdainfully. 'Those two deserved what they got. Their arrogance had become insufferable.'

 _Nothing worth knowing_ , Azrael thought as he approached his first target. Their conversation could have gone on for some time, but he needed the present moment to obtain the maximum efficiency from his attack. The element of surprise was vital, and he had been very lucky those two were looking away. For all he knew, they may have already sensed him and were merely trying to disguise their wait, although he wasn't very convinced of theories of that sort. As much as their unnatural characteristics helped them, the vampires hadn't proven to be in any way above normal mortals in their thinking, reasoning and planning. For that reason, the Dragonborn relied on them being drawn to lose awareness if busy doing something else, like talking. He wasn't going to sneak up on them, it would have been way too risky because of the lit torch. His target was different.

He drew the dagger, gripped the handle tightly, closed the left hand on the collar and sank the blade into the Death Hound's skull. The edges pierced and slashed the rotten bone. Azrael stirred the blade inside the creature's flesh and mashing the monster's brain completely. No one could have been able to revive it, a tactic the vampires might have tried to use. As he pulled the dagger out, a freezing chill blew out of the thin wound and struck his arm. The small barbs of his gauntlets quickly covered with an extremely thin layer of ice.

He rose and looked at his enemies. The two vampires had noticed him just now. _I have become good, no amount of luck could have aided me here,_ he thought. The male in particular looked startled. 'Intruder!' he screamed. 'Bleed for me, mortal!' Azrael paid close attention to his legs and feet. If he had learned anything from his information gathering, the more instinctual nature of the vampire opposed to a mortal member of his race was one of the most important pieces. The fiend was ready to spring himself forward. His intention was to plunge the iron axe he carried in his skull. Meanwhile, his mate would pound him with a hail of elemental projectiles. Faint lights were already sparkling in her hands.

Those were the bloodsuckers' plans. But the Dragonborn had his.

Azrael saw and calculated the trajectory of the axe swing that the vampire was executing and that would have soon reached him. Both his hands moved simultaneously in a complicated but necessary movement. The right one rose, the fingers clutching the dagger tighter in order to absorb the tremendous force of the fiend's strike. The left one reached behind his back, grabbing the hilt of the longsword with meticulous precision and drawing it. The arm extended and lowered.

Some things followed his plans and some other didn't. The vampire's iron axe did collide against his dagger with a great deal of strength, making his arm shake and his muscles ache intensely for a moment. The pain was sharper than he expected and it caused his left forearm to lose the complete control over the grip of the longsword. The blade landed on the enemy's thin pauldron instead of his neck and slid to the left. He locked his muscles up tight and prevented the sword from going too far, redirecting the swing and striking the vampire's side with the flat section. It wasn't overly effective because that particular hit was meant to make breathing harder, and vampires don't need to breathe. Still, it staggered him just enough.

Azrael vaulted backwards, behind the pillar. As soon as he had hit the vampire, he had caught a glimpse of his fellow mage in the background charging up a spell. He needed to put an obstacle between him and that witch, or his chances of winning would get slimmer than they currently were. The monolith standing near him was his best bet for an blockage. The other vampire was pursuing him closely and didn't look keen on following any particular plan or tactic. The Dragonborn shifted his weight on his back foot, sliding the dagger back into his belt and taking up a defensive stance. His sword was pointed at his enemy and ready to dart.

The vampire ignored his subtle threats or counterattacking and did exactly the same thing as he had done before. He rose his hand and tried to plunge the axe in the Dovahkiin's shoulder. _Same movements…_ Azrael noted, in the brief time left for him to think clearly. _He's repeating an identical strike. If I parry his strike just as before he'd recoil in the same way, but perhaps there's another way._ He couldn't fully visualize his idea because the enemy's blade was getting dangerously close. He let go of the longsword with the left hand and relaxed the wrist of his right one while shifting the weight back on his forward foot.

The two weapons crashed once again, but this time in a different way. The axe's edge collided badly on the diagonally-positioned longsword and much of the swing's strength was easily dissipated even before it slipped to the right, cutting thin air. Azrael retracted the sword and stepped to the left on his enemy, away from his weapon and temporarily out of his line of sight. Bringing the sword closer to his abdomen, he gripped it with both hands and rotated, whirling it by his side and bringing the point in the exact direction of the vampire's neck.

The fiend was doomed. The Dragonborn had played with his impulsive reactions and now there wasn't any kind of supernatural speed or strength that could have saved him. He turned around to face him, a crazed groan warping his features. Magicka streamed briefly in the Dovahkiin's body, flowing rapidly towards his palms and then directly into the weapon itself, morphing and transforming from shapeless energy into searing flames. The sword blazed with an extreme light before bursting with fire while Azrael lowered his shoulders, controlled his movements and thrust the flaming blade into the vampire's exposed throat.

'Vignorn! No!' The Dragonborn withdrew the blade from the enemy's neck and glimpsed at the female vampire standing at the back of the chamber. Her hand was clenched and a pale blue light oozed from it. He twirled the blade, bringing it by his side, shoved the standing corpse aside with his shoulder and flattened against the pillar. The ethereal forces in the area were altered, and just after he heard a wailing hiss coming his way. Two ice spears whispered as they flew right beside him and moments later they crashed against the stone wall, shattering and raining splinters everywhere. 'Stop hiding, mortal,' the vampire taunted him, stopping. 'I'll give you a beautiful and swift death before feeding off your dead body.' The sound of her footsteps wasn't hearable any longer. _She must have stopped,_ Azrael thought. _She's waiting for me. Let's not make her wait too long, shall we?_

He grabbed the longsword with both hands and took a deep breath. He narrowed his eyes, letting the deeper images of the world around him seep into his mind. When he felt ready, he stepped out of the hiding spot. The witch crossed his hidden gaze, her eyes mad with fury and hunger, and closed her fists again. She was channeling more magicka, just as he had planned. He moved a step forward, feeling his whole body and perceiving its every fiber surrendering energy to the core of pure strength quickly forming in his mouth. He saw her hands trembling, a sign that new projectiles were ready to be thrown his way. A moment more and he would have been buried under a barrage of ice barbs, but he already had gathered all the force he needed.

' _Wuld!_ '

He felt his feet lose contact with the ground as the power of the wind itself lifted him and carried him forward. The sense of touch stopped working for the brief moment in which nothing was really able to come in contact him with. The two ice spikes grazed his figure but shattered harmlessly against his hovering frame. The little magicka he could call for was channeled into the sword, this time glazing the blade with ice. Meanwhile, he gripped the sword tighter and sliced from the upper right to his lower left. The blade encountered a very slight resistance at one point, which he hardly felt because of the great deal of strength imbuing his whole body. The only thing he saw was that, right after having met said obstacle, the blade became coated of an opaque, light red substance. An earsplitting scream shredded the air.

Azrael heard a thud behind him before he could glance around, and when he did he saw the vampire lying on the ground helplessly.

Calmly, he turned fully, facing his mutilated enemy and looking down at her. Just because they were undead it didn't mean they didn't feel pain like any normal mortal. The sweep had severed her left leg at the height of he knee and the right one halfway down the calf. A mortal would have surely fainted if not died on the hit, but those kind of deaths were caused by a dysfunction of the heart, which doesn't beat in the first place in a vampire. The stumps should have also made her bleed out quite quickly, but Azrael hadn't infused his strike with ice for nothing. The wounds had been cauterized by the cold and no blood flowed out of the severed limbs. The warmth of a living being would have quickly melted the magical ice, but not the cool body of an undead.

 _I'm not sure she realizes that I have complete control over her life,_ thought the Dragonborn, looking at her face. _She lives or dies by my whim and nothing else._ The visage of the vampire was dreadful, first deformed by the curse and now warped by the pain and anger. The compressed nose was curled up horrifically, the skin on the gaunt cheeks was stretched beyond normal and created deep and ugly wrinkles all around her face, emphasizing the cross shape that her lips took. She had dark hair and red, bloodshot eyes that even now flashed with unimaginable wrath and hunger. _No suffering in the world can alter their core nature. Much like us mortals…_ he thought, relaxing his muscles and letting the blade dangle for a moment by his side while the vampire recovered the awareness of her surroundings and processed what had just happened to her.

In the meantime, he gazed over at Tolan's body. Now that he was more up-close he could deduce something more of what went down while he was crawling through the tunnel reaching the hall. He had assumed the Vigilant had been overpowered by the two vampires in a frontal fight, but no. The left shoulder was marked by a large cut, obviously a stab in the back. Literally. The biggest wound was probably on the torso or the abdomen, which were against the ground and hidden from the Dragonborn's view, but that detail wasn't insignificant. It had taken a technically deceitful move to have the better of him. Azrael was mildly impressed, something that hadn't happened in a long time without counting his encounter with Isran. _And to think that Redguard despised him so much. He was a mad and probably dangerous individual, but he was a better fighter than we both thought. A pity he attacked so quickly._ He slowly came back to the vampire, who was finally regaining her sense of presence.

'Mortal filth…' she spit, her fangs blinking in the clouded sky's dim light that came through. 'I'll feast on your blood yet, just—' She was cut off. Azrael raised his arm and pointed the tip of the longsword at her throat, but the thing which scared the vampire had been the sudden, though very weak, flame flash that had come from the edges of the blade. She flattened her back against the ground, grasping the ground with her clawed fingers as if searching something or trying to grab something. Her claws snapped and broke when rasping the hard rock, but she didn't stop. For the first time, the Dragonborn realized where their more instinctual nature brought them closer to animals than to Men and Mer. Her eyes, while still thirsty, were marked by fear.

'You offered me a beautiful and swift death just a moment ago,' Azrael said, glacial. 'Allow me to return the courtesy. Tell me what I want and I'll deliver. Don't, and you'll experience the most painful death in all eternity. Have I been clear?' His voice touched its deepest notes, echoing in the hall darkly and menacingly. Not even the vampire was able to stand up to him. She growled something that could probably stand for a submission. Azrael articulated his words clearly. 'How many of you are in here?'

'Lokil and the others. I don't know how many. We arrived later.'

'And what—'

The Dragonborn halted his tongue and stopped speaking. The vampire was moving strangely and after a single moment she rose from the ground and tried to reach for Azrael's throat. But the sword was precisely between her and her meal. The blade pierced her throat and the murderous snarl she was producing suddenly changed into an agonizing and indistinct gurgling. There was no way to understand what unknown instinct had got the better of her, a predatory or a suicidal one. The Dovahkiin furrowed his eyebrows and sighed deeply, made curious but not frightened by that unexpected event. He simply stood up straight and ripped the blade out of the undead's flesh with a strong and sudden movement.

 _Worst cooperation ever_ , he thought, extending his arm and cleaning the blade on the dead vampire's armor, leaving long red stripes on the grey leather.

* * *

A/N: And there goes Tolan… I could't resist giving him a little more identity than in the game, but there wasn't much time for it. But who cares, I can almost hear you sniffing out Serana's arrival.

While we're on that, this sort of introduction to the character and the world before the more complex things start to play a role… How has it panned out? Has it already aroused any particular feelings towards the setting or the main character? Are there any expectations? A weakness of mine as a writer is that I'm rarely able to tell which, if any, emotions are caused by my stories. And on top of that, I happen to be extremely curious. Like seriously, I have gotten into trouble a couple of times for that.

See you, dear readers, in the next chapter.


	6. Chapter V: Princess in the Wrong Castle

Chapter V: _A Princess in the Wrong Castle_

* * *

Azrael's foot stuck on the ground. He lifted it with more strength, feeling a great deal of resistance. As soon as the entire sole had risen he brushed it with his hand, channeling a small flame and making the gauntlet sear just enough to liquefy the mushy layer of spider venom that had gotten jammed to his boot. _The goo was everywhere, no way I could have avoided it._ The spider had died with its back turned to the wall, and the killing blow the Dragonborn dealt had slashed the poison-filled part of the abdomen. The venom had covered the whole path leading to the wooden door he had just walked through.

 _To be fair,_ thought the Dragonborn with a sneer taking shape on his lips, _that went as well as it possibly could. That vampire looked powerful, but no amount of strength in the world will protect against a threat you're not aware of._ Upon entering the room, Azrael had stumbled upon the huge spider and the vampire fighting. The spider was already wounded when he had reached them, and the vampire was slowed down by the amount of venom the creature had spit right in his face. The spider had sensed the Dragonborn coming in, but the vampire hadn't. Azrael had quickly lurked up to him and sliced his throat. Surprisingly enough, the fiend had been able to somewhat recover, but it hadn't taken much for Azrael to change the grip and dip the whole dagger into the enemy's gorge, severing all the blood vessels and cracking the vertebrae. Not even an undead could survive that. _They are painfully hard to kill with conventional methods, though_. The spider, injured and slowed, hadn't been much of a challenge. The thick and sticky venom left behind by his tore carcass was more difficult to deal with than the actual creature when it was still alive.

Neither the fight nor the venom managed to keep the Dragonborn's interest for long after he entered the new room. He slowly rose, distractedly. All his focus was on the ancient shapes of the arches that held the ceiling. Those were very old, and not a style that was common in most Nordic ruins. Very little of Dimhollow crypt followed the standard layout of Nordic burrows and vaults. There were the Draugr and the structure was recognizable, but certain elements had been changed. _This chamber is an example,_ the Dovahkiin said to himself, his gaze shifting from the arches to the stony statues that guarded the way outside of the room. They were brutal creatures with lean, clawed arms and legs, bat-like heads with massive horns coming out of their temples and a pair of withered wings. The stone was chipped in a few places on both the statues, but other from that they both looked very well preserved, and they must had been there was as long as that place had. _There's always a queer vibe to these vampires, isn't there?_ Lastly, in the middle of the chamber stood a small pillar that could have been something like a bookstand, but Azrael couldn't think of any clear explanation as to why it was here or what had been its purpose.

A sound coming from somewhere below his current position caught his attention. It was a moan of pain. _A human. A man. How did he get here?_ He crept forward, crouching again and passing in between the two statues. He heard a fit of wet cough, probably coming from the same individual.

'I'll never tell you anything, vampire.' The voice reached his ears muffled. Whoever uttered those words was in a lot of pain, but had still some resolve to oppose the cause of such pain. Azrael could think of a few things, but for the moment he preferred to listen and reach a vantage point as soon as he could. Meanwhile, the man continued speaking. 'My oath to Stendarr is stronger than any suffering you can inflict on me.'

'I believe you, Vigilant. And I don't think you even know what you've found here.' This new person's voice was gruff and croaking. _All the vampires I've heard the voices of talked with this strange squawking tone,_ thought the Dragonborn. Befitting the role of the merciless torturer, the vampire's tone was firm and rather presuming. 'So go meet your beloved Stendarr.'

The sound of a blade piercing flesh. Right at that moment, Azrael moved a last step and reached the stone parapet. The narrow balcony where he stood overlooked a place that was magnificent in a sinister, ominous way. The cavern was somewhat circular, probably artificially created to have that shape. There was no floor, for there was a lake below. The water whispered and glimmered, reflecting the light coming through from a crack in the mountainside. _We're still close to the surface,_ observed the Dragonborn, slightly impressed at the mastery of those ancient architects. Evoking the circular shape of the cavern, the central structure was a stony disk with arches decorating it and further reminding of the circles. Stone bridges linked the disk to both sides of the cavern. It was hard for Azrael to catch every little detail because of the white mist that floated in the entire place, surely raising from the water below. But even without seeing everything, the disk still gave off a very grim feel. He could tell it just by looking at its design, and his assumption was further reinforced by the sheer amount of magical power that flooded the stone, following undecipherable paths. _It's as if… Something's holding it back. There must be some way to release that magic, and maybe that will unveil this place's secret._ But as much as he'd have liked to keep speculating and problem solving, the most immediate danger was directly below him.

'Are you sure that was wise, Lokil?' asked a female voice, most likely a vampire too. 'He still might have told us something.' The Dragonborn immediately shifted his gaze on the area directly below him. The floor was made up of stone slabs with a parapet preventing anyone from falling into the water, much like the balcony where he stood. There was a pillar standing on the corner of that lower level; around it were a brazier and a corpse. The two vampires stood near the corpse. 'We haven't gotten anywhere ourselves with—'

'He knew nothing.'

 _By the Three, did you really have to interrupt her?_ the Dragonborn thought, grimacing wryly. He found situations like these more humorous than many jokes told by the people always living on the surface. There was a strange irony to them. He took his time to look more closely at the corpse. He couldn't see much from there, but the man had a bare chest disfigured by wounds and cuts. _The work of that Lokil, I'd imagine. That vampire back at the entrance mentioned his name, too,_ he remembered. _Tolan didn't mention a Vigilant going this deep inside the crypt, though. He either didn't know or that was the thing he was hiding from me. He knew there was backup further ahead and hoped to defeat me with the help of this poor sod._ Whatever might have gone through the Vigilant's mind, there was no way of knowing in that moment. The only thing he needed was a way to deal with the two vampires. He had dealt with one strong vampire before or two weak ones. Never had he faced two strong ones at the same time. He needed a plan. He kept listening.

'He served his purpose by leading us to this place. Now it is up to us to bring Harkon the prize,' Lokil said, walking across the bridge and advancing towards the stone disk, looking at the vampire behind his back. 'And we will not return without it. Vingalmo and Orthjolf will make way for me after this. You have no idea what the Lord has promised to those who bring back what he wants.'

'Yes, of course, Lokil,' the other vampire relied, submissively but firmly. 'Do not forget who brought you news of the Vigilant's discovery.'

A rough chuckle escaped Lokil's mouth. He rested a hand on the column standing near the edges of the disk, staring into the water below. 'I never forget who my friends are,' he said cryptically. He let the phrase hang in the air for a moment, and Azrael found it painfully clear that he intended to continue. And he did. 'Or my enemies…'

The Dragonborn wrinkled his eyebrows and exhaled. There was stairway that led from his position to the level where the two vampires stood. He needed to reach the stone disk before his enemies could do anything with the vast quantity of magic flowing inside the rock. He might have had little time, so he hurried. He descended the stairway nimbly, keeping his head down to prevent direct rays of light from reaching him. It wasn't completely pointless, but then again, vampires see almost perfectly in the darkness. Crouching down was more habit than an actual strategy, but it still didn't hurt his progress. He couldn't organize his thoughts well. His mind was sizzling with energy and ideas, facts and theories linking and seemingly resolving themselves in a chaos so intense Azrael perceived his mind as if it was on fire. He focused first on understanding the full content of what the vampire had said, which was important information.

Lokil had mentioned two important things. Firstly, he said that the Vigilant had led them to that place. That quickly clarified the identity of the dead man. It was almost certainly Adavald, who had in fact led the vampires to the place he claimed they needed to protect. _It's one of those moments when it seems like someone's playing mean tricks on you,_ the Dragonborn thought. Tolan had mentioned his researches into the crypt, and somehow the vampires had snuck the evidence from right under their noses. _Lucky thing very little of the Vigilants are still alive. The shame would unbearable._ Nevertheless, the vampires were there and that corpse was presumably Adavald's.

Secondly, he had clearly given two distinct names to one person. He called him first Harkon and then Lord. It was rather evident that it was that Harkon who had commanded his minions to search for his so called prize they had also mentioned, but there was something else. The mention of the Lord filled Azrael's mind with hundreds of unfathomable theories and he had something that helped him narrowing those down. And yet it allowed for even more to be created. _The vampire we reanimated at the Hall of the Vigilant, he mentioned a Lord but also a daughter of such Lord. This does help, but it opens a universe of possibilities._ There was one thing that hammered on his conscious flow of thoughts like a mallet, but he didn't really want to acknowledge that option. But there was a chance. _What if this artifact that is hidden here relates in some way to that woman? What if the woman is hiding here, too?_ He didn't like it. An artifact could be broken, drained of all its power, defiled or reduced into splinters. A sentient being, whether living or undead, was a completely different matter to deal with.

He breathed in deeply. He quieted his thoughts. A newfound clarity made his way in his mind. _The theorizing and planning later. Now the killing._

The Dragonborn walked down the final few steps of the stairway and turned around, lurking towards the stone bridge. He always kept his back and head lower than the parapet in an attempt to stay hidden from immediate view, but there was little need for it at the moment. He noticed while traversing the little space between the previous set of stairs and the new one he found, which brought him on the platform were Adavald's body was, that the two vampires were very absorbed by the center of the stone disk, apparently a simple prop that came out of the floor. There was a man with them, a Nord, wearing some light leather armor. He stood behind them, his limbs seemingly numb. _He could be one of those thralls mentioned in the files. Even lower vampires can influence someone just by biting them, though only for a time. But if Lokil is as powerful as I think he is, that slave might be his for eternity._ He shouldn't have been a problem. He didn't look too alive to the world around him to be responsive enough to be a threat.

Azrael sighed deeply. The more he looked at the disk, the more he was puzzled by the presence of that piece of architecture. That construction didn't have anything in common with normal Nordic constructions, which meant that entire section of the cave must had been created later, probably by making the previous tunnels collapse into the water below and making the necessary room to house that magnificent structure. The arches were also carved, creating small and sinuous lines that gave the building an even higher splendor. A very disturbing splendor, but still something old Nords wouldn't have given much attention to. The style, the attention to detail and the overall feel of the building wasn't like anything he had ever seen in Skyrim. Moreover, the things Urag had told him about the history of the College of Winterhold suggested him that the smooth stones that made up the disk, which looked in some ways similar to the slabs the College was built of, had been worked with the same tools. Tools that still hadn't yet been invented when the Nordic crypts came to be.

The Dragonborn stepped on the bridge. Since the vampires weren't looking, he decided to stand up and just walk very carefully. He had a plan in mind, one that just might work. There were many elements that influenced its outcome, but the most important was the temper of his enemies. If anything, he could count on their reaction. He had realized with time that the best way to kill a vampire is to give the right stimulus, and they would blindly follow it. Those quick reactions were useful, but easily exploitable. The ones he faced didn't seem any different from their kin. Lokil, on top of those things, looked both arrogant and overconfident. His fellow vampire, although more caution, would have followed his orders. The thrall wasn't a problem. If they had decided to stay far away, the plan would work. If they attacked him, it would work too. The only possible scenario where it could fail was if they approached the situation with careful thinking, something he didn't see them do.

He stepped on the edge of the construction and took a deep breath. 'Don't move,' he breathed out. As fairly predictable, the two vampires did exactly what they had just been forbidden to do. The thrall did too, turning slowly and swinging his limp arms around. The Dragonborn saw the vampires looking at him and a mocking grin making its way on their lips. _Good,_ he thought. 'What are you doing here?'

Lokil's wicked smile widened. White fangs blinked in the faint light coming from the crack in the ceiling. 'A mortal, here?' he said, taunting but also clearly confused. 'Demanding to know why we are here? It should be us asking you how you got here.'

'Through the entrance,' Azrael said, coolly. A grimace appeared on Lokil's skinny features. His haughty look went well with the hooked nose, very slightly compressed, and the eyes flashing like burning coals. A white turf was all that remained of his hair and a thin silver beard veiled the lower portion of his face. As with all vampires related in some way to the Volkihar, his appearance wasn't overly affected by his vampirism. He donned a black suit of armor, but not quite the elaborate one the transforming vampire wore. His fellow wore a red suit. Her deformed traits were warped in a horrific expression of anger and tension. She clearly wasn't so comfortable with the new guest her leader was entertaining. The thrall had a neutral expression and kept staring back at the female vampire, probably a sign that it had been her to abduct him. _Unimportant. They're playing along. That's all that matters,_ Azrael thought, abandoning his observations and returning with his feet firmly on the ground. He breathed again, and this time he moved his fingers a little. 'Now,' he continued, 'I'll ask for the last time. What are you searching here? Where do you come from? Who is this Harkon you were talking about?'

He was fully aware that that much meant crossing the line, but deep inside he hoped they would actually continue to play their own game, and thus playing his without them even knowing. But that wasn't going to happen. The two acted impulsively. They didn't even share a glance and yet both of them readied an attack at the same moment. Lokil pulled his sword out of the sheath and the other vampire her axe, a bright red light sparkling in her other hand. She attacked first, running towards him with the weapon slightly behind her. She was ready to swing at him and unleash a deadly blow. Lokil sprang towards him too, but a moment later. He rose the blade in the air, keeping it in a position from which he might have initiated both a thrust and a cut. He wasn't the daftest of fighters, but even that wouldn't have helped him.

The Dragonborn wouldn't have had the time to reach for his weapons and defend himself. Maybe he would, but it wasn't a safe option. He had other plans. His called for strength, and it answered him. He felt the very substance of his body being drained of its vigor to fuel the power core that gave form and force to empty air. Right as he opened his mouth his body started to feel lighter, as if hearing the distant echo of the Thu'um taking shape and executing its command, slowly abandoning reality.

' _Feim Zii Gron!_ '

That which had been started reached his conclusion. Azrael felt his essence disperse, losing itself in the Void and straying far from reality, kept together only by the ineffable strength of his immortal soul. His body became translucid, ghostly. The vampire's blade went through it without encountering any resistance and bounced back against the ground. Lokil's thrust, carefully aimed at his throat, drove him directly past his evanescent figure. The Dragonborn's eyes caught glimpses of the bewildered gaze of the female vampire, which were frantically shifting at different parts of his body without understanding what was happening.

Azrael touched the other scroll he carried. The power contained in it, albeit different in form, was similar to the one of the other he had used. And, much alike that time when he reanimated the vampire, he channeled the ethereal power contained inside the folds of paper and guided it. He felt it taking the same shape the scroll had forced it to take. He repeated the exact same moment with his hands, but this time he finished by bringing them together very close to his chest. Lokil tried to stab him again, but as before he just walked through him. As the Dragonborn had considered, the female vampire understood what was happening.

'Lokil, run…'

Azrael opened his hands.

The disjunction that split his body away from the present world ceased to sustain itself. Azrael felt his material body returning to reality, feeling at once all the feelings that had for one moment halted. He felt the weight of the armor and the flesh itself burdening him, all the little and insignificant bothers coming back to plague him. There was some solace in thinking what would have shortly befell to the nearby vampires. He was feeling the power being released and rushing into the ground.

From underneath his feet, inferno raged. The fire flashed more bright for a moment, and the started expanding. The flames blazed ten feet up into the air, drawing a growing ring of searing death as they moved. The vampires were too slow to react to it. _Burn, fiends_. The fire touched them and embraced them, enclosing their undead bodies in a flaming cage that collapsed and consumed their frames as well as their lives. They screamed. The shirked. No mortal could cry with that strength. Smoke and cinders hovered near their shapes as they vanished into the spirals of the fire. The thrall stumbled back, his skin scorched but not entirely burnt to ashes. Azrael felt the magic starting to fade, and moments late the flame ring stopped expanding and finally dissipated in a cloud of grey mist and black, smoldering cinders.

A pile of smoking embers was all that remained of Lokil and his fellow.

Azrael swept his gaze around him and breathed in deeply. The chilly and humid air was very welcome. He leaned on one foot and grazed Lokil's cinders with one foot, dispersing them around. The ash was so thin that it rose into the air and hovered midair carried by the weak breeze seeping through the crack above. _And to dust return…_ the Dragonborn said to himself. He was surprised by how well the scroll had worked. It was better designed than most. The usual pattern charges the scroll in a way that forces the user to release all the power in one, uncontrolled burst. This had the incorporated form of the expanding circle, which worked better in situations like those. He raised his hand and took a look at the tattered paper, and channeling a small amount of magicka into his hand he burnt what remained of it. He threw the ashes in the scattered heap of the female vampire's remains. He briefly thought that he had almost used all of the extra equipment the mages had given him. The two scrolls were gone and Enthir's gold had too, mainly in food. He had forced Tolan to sleep outside and water was one of the sole things which wasn't scarce in Skyrim. The only remaining item was the potion Colette had given him. And like she had said, it was better if it never came to be needed.

Azrael stepped forward towards the stone pillar he had seen back when he was going down the stairs on the other side of the bridge. _Finally,_ he thought with an amused grin, _I get back to investigating. Fighting is fun, but poking around and tinkering is always better, for some reason._ That thought traced all the way back to one of the conversation more engaging conversations he had fallen into with Babette. They, without any rational reason, had started discussing each other's traits and overall characteristics. Babette had initially had trouble describing Azrael, but in the end she had reached a point were the concepts of nihilist, observer and outlander became the predominant ones. The observer was maybe the one the Dragonborn had put less thought about in the past, and it had really engrossed him for a time. He started noticing his inquisitive instinct, his inner curiosity and ability to pierce through simple things to reach more complex ones. He became aware that, as much as killing was his life, his favorite pastime outside of conceptualizing and thinking was observing. Especially when he was presented with something new and mysterious. His two pursuits seemed at first to clash with one another. At times he interrupted a convoluted reasoning to examine something that had caught his attention, and some other times his careful studying of his surroundings was harshly hindered by a strong tendency to get into his own head and start reflecting. However, the two went hand in hand, in a way. With time, he had gotten the hang of it.

In that moment, they were peacefully coexisting. The eyes and every other sense that had active access to the environment was keeping track of every new element found while his mind was busy contemplating the various options regarding the vampire presence. And yet, in that mental activity that might seem chaotic at first, he had managed to put an order. And order which rendered his whole mind quiet and still. But, for the time being, he chose to abandon those thought. _I need to focus. The self-awareness rationalizing later._

He moved two finals steps which brought him next to the stone pillar. It was pentagonal, which didn't have any meaning on its own, but there was something else. Its top had the shape of a low dome with a flat top portion. The edges of this last part were very slightly separated from the round parts, which suggested they could move. _Maybe this isn't a magically activated apparatus but a mechanically activated one. Smart, and crafty. I wonder what triggers it, though._ He put a hand on the flat portion, brushing it with his fingers. He grazed it with his thumb, applying a very small pressure. The stone seemed to lower.

Azrael turned his whole body in the pillar's direction. _This is the trigger._ He laid two fingers on it and applied a greater pressure. The section sank down and slid to the side as a sharp spike spurted out of the rock. The edge of the barb hit the Dragonborn's finger, carrying it upwards and grazing it. Azrael looked at the scratch left on the metal and shifted his gaze on the pillar once again. The spike had retracted. _A blood seal,_ he guessed, _not overly different from the one at Sky Haven Temple. This should open with any kind of blood, though. I hope mine works. Seeing what Dragon Blood does to the vampires it could just as well interfere with this kind of sigil. And I need to find a way to activate it without destroying my entire hand in the process._

He took off his left gauntlet, clenching and opening his fingers to stretch them. The armored glove's fingers were flexible but he couldn't pretend they weren't there. As far as comfort was concerned, he missed the days when he wore fingerless gloves. He brought his palm to the button, distancing his digits and positioning the side of his middle fingers where the spike would come out. He didn't do it immediately, but studied the positioning further for a few more moments. Had the wound been too large, not only he wouldn't be able to handle the sword with two hands but magic would prove difficult to cast for a while. With the pain distracting him, the magicka could bleed through the wound in a similar way to blood. He needed to be careful.

He leaned his fingers down and pushed. The spike burst out again, injuring the second phalanx of the Dragonborn's middle finger. As planned. The red droplets fell inside the small cavity, sizzling as they reached the bottom. A purple smoke rose from inside the pillar, but that haze was imbued with powerful magic. From the lower portion of the pillar, five streams of violet mist surged through the fissures in the ground. There was an outer circle, carved in the smooth stone, and upon reaching it the streams stopped and flashed. A curtain of a nightmarish, purplish color rose from the ground and surrounded Azrael. He looked around. That lilac mist was impressive, but it was a mere phase of a larger ritual that needed external help to proceed. There was surely something that hinted at how that might have had to continued. There was something, in truth. The misty wall was irregular in a single place, in correspondence to one of the many lines whittled in the stone. The purple stream flowed in it too, reaching the very ridge of the disk. In between, but not position on the ridge, was an unlit and heavily decorated brazier. _A conduit,_ the Dragonborn thought, putting his gauntlet back on his forearm ad hand. _The power to activate the entire thing is too much for a single object to handle. It need to be redistributed, channeled._ That was what he had learned in the days when Phinis was teaching him the complicated rituals necromancers and dark mages across the eras had created. _This one's very powerful, and very old. What ever they hid here, it's something of incalculable worth._

He didn't feel anything as he went through the purplish barrier. The misty wall was a mere reflection and there wasn't any magical force imbuing it. Azrael looked down at the fissure in the floor as he pushed the brazier on the edge of the disk. The line was saturated with that hazy substance. Meanwhile, the brazier moved smoothly, as if there was something below it that fit into the fissure and helped it slid back and forth. Upon reaching the spot where the violet stream ended, its empty top vessel sparkled with a spectral fire of the same color. _It's working,_ the Dragonborn thought, nodding and following the stream of purple mist as it flowed into another fissure and joined with the straight line connecting to the second brazier. There were five in total, one for each of the angles of the pentagonal shape of the central pillar.

The Dragonborn walked over and pushed the second to its correct position. The same process of the mist showing him the way repeated itself. The menial task temporarily allowed him to retreat into his mind and pick up all the unanswered questions he was working on solving. The question which was occupying his thoughts just before he unsealed the blood sigil, about his mixed desire to observe and also conceptualize, could wait for a moment longer. For the moment, he thought about everything that had happened and what to exactly do after discovering what that blood ritual hid. _Depends on the hidden object, I guess,_ he thought, in an attempt to discard every option that was too daring to be considerable without further insight into the situation. He pushed the third brazier away to its place with a deep breath. _Well, I suppose I could return to the Dawnguard. I haven't learned anything extremely useful. This Lord called Harkon, the fact that his daughter is somehow involved and so on are more theoretical information that practical ones._ In retrospect, he hadn't really learned much more about the vampires than he previously knew. He still had no idea on what they were searching, although that was probably going to get answered in a moment, or what they wanted. It was obviously very important, but that was it. _And who knows what could be important to those fiends. There could be a trite bottle filled to the brim with blood hidden here, who knows._ He pushed the fourth brazier. There was so much left to the imagination, although everything seemed to come back to the object he was about to find. Hopefully. Whatever they had put so much effort in could reveal their true motivation. _Probably not in a straightforward and direct way, as I'd like,_ he thought while repositioning the fifth and final brazier, _but no matter. Now…_ He stepped back and looked at the area, overflowing with plum haze. The light grew stronger and stronger. _Let's see what this did._

The circle of greyish stone surrounding the central pillar began shifting, splitting into smaller pieces which spaced out to form a pentagon. Its edges were hollow, bristling with magic and glowing of a outlandish bright. The purple mist was getting thinner and thinner, giving way to a strong light that was painful to the eyes of the Dragonborn. From the fragmented floor rose spirals of blue energy which dispersed into the air above them. Azrael could feel the enormous amount of magical energy being quickly cast out of the strict pattern where it had been contained for so long. Despite looking so magnificent and sinister, the apparatus was hemorrhaging force. Maybe it had been damaged, or maybe it hadn't been set up in a perfect way. Maybe the one that had created in was in a hurry. Too many options and none of them was completely illogical. There was, the Dragonborn noticed, a very confined flow of magicka which was flowing into him even. The energy seeped out from every breach it could find.

A tremor shook the whole construction. Azrael felt one of his feet lowering, but the other one was going down even faster. He looked around and realized that the floor was sinking, forming steps in correspondence of the circular lines wrinkling the disk. More energy was still escaping the mechanism, halting its functions. The Dragonborn understood at once that the disk where he had walked was just the work of that magical device. It wasn't the real shape of the building. The real shape of the building was the one to which the whole construction was reverting back to. The remaining power still held in the stone burst out at once in a powerful flash, and then only a very faint flame still lingered around the central, and most sunk, part of the floor. Amidst the blue flashes, Azrael noticed that the central pillar was built upon a larger pentagonal monolith.

There was an empty space underneath one of the sides of the pillar. _This should be it._ Azrael put his hands on the stone and hinted at the movement. The weak magic was enough to guide the piece in its descent into the ground. But that wasn't important. There was something else.

Azrael's heart missed a beat.

–––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––– A Ω ––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––

Something shifted, twisted and warped.

Slowly, very slowly, a forgotten sensation reached the blank void, flaring with all the colors she could remember the existence of. The void spun and twirled, whirling in a hurricane of confusion. Of dreams, and nightmares. A blinding and deafening chaos, shimmering in her mind and streaming away at her whole essence. A frosty grip rose up to it, trying to contain the flow but unable to do so. The flow was continuous and too strong to be stopped. The ice, incapable of stopping the turning tides, reached out for her. It grabbed her, sealed her way from all that hazardous movement, paralyzing her. There was no way to escape, in that moment. Trapped in there, there was nothing stronger than the icy grip.

The chaos started to glisten with a dark, grim light. It was a greyish, glaring bright. There was something familiar about it, and yet she couldn't tell exactly what it was or what it meant. The colors were merged, confused, as if filtered by something. The light was distorted, alternatively taking the shape of lines and circles, spirals and nets, odd and curved threads and other undistinguishable forms. Two, quick flashes. They hadn't been completely haphazard. She felt something move the moment the rays hit and penetrated her.

Something else still began to stir. Gradually, a cool sensation started to trace lines in the invisible. She did remember what they were. They irradiated constantly, flowing thanks to obscure forces that permeated the same shape that sensation was marking out. Going down from the spot where the flashes hit her, they traced a smaller area and then widened, splitting and going down still. Splitting again, the reached a dead end from where they curved and turned back the way they came, slowly but surely outlining that oddly familiar frame.

A very simple and yet incredibly hard realization hit her. _This is my body._ The shimmers and glimmers of the twirling chaos lost some of their bright, the icy grip lost some of the strength which was holding her and the entire pandemonium cracked in two. Two horizontals gaps opened, letting in a light so strong she believed it would ultimately force her into submission.

But it didn't. The frost always protected her because, if not, she would vanish. That didn't happen however. The light pierced her, but she didn't lose herself. She gained the light. The gaps opened more broadly. The shape defined by the cool streaming into the frame of her body was getting more precise with every single passing moment, although that could have corresponded to any amount of time ranging from a few fractions of a second to a day or maybe a week. Those very concepts were something distant from her, as if not part of her anymore. Only now they seemed to regain a certain degree of clarity.

Then, seemingly without any reason, she sensed a lost awareness surging through her frame, gathering vigor and feeling as it rushed upwards. The mind and flesh linked, vibrating strongly at the recovered connection. Another flash of light struck her, this time with the strength of a thunderbolt. The shimmering chaos fractured, torn asunder, and then exploded into uncountable glimmers and lights. The blinding light took over, occupying her vision. But by that point, it could be called sight. She felt something floating, a marvelous and very odd sensation. _I live… And I don't._ The only thing able to defeat the frost was precisely that. Reality. Something she hadn't felt in forever. She didn't know for how long, but it felt like an eternity.

That moment realization filled her with a queer joy. It didn't last long. Sounds started to reach her ears, but there was just the moan of the wind, a welcome noise buried in sleep and oblivion. But that wasn't worrying. There were no particularly strange hums. Her hearing was sharp and receptive, even when still lived. Nothing worrying. The problem was that, with sound, she felt her poor balance. The shapes of her feet were intertwined. Not that they were fused together, but they were in a rather odd position, and her equilibrium wasn't stable. Before she could do anything, she was falling forward. Her body, thought awake, wasn't responding to her. She visualized her hands moving to her face to protect it, but they didn't move. They awaited the crash, the pain on her head.

It didn't happen.

She felt herself being stopped without anything of her touching any surface. _Am I still falling?_ She didn't feel any air rushing along the naked portions of skins. _Maybe…_ Her thoughts were cut sharply by a sudden movement that made her lose every sense of direction. She had probably been flipped, and something was pushing her down.

Moments later, her back crashed against cold, hard stone. Something else, slightly softer, pushed strongly against her chest. A flat object. The shape glimmered, but she could see the outlines of the object going upwards and forming a solid, black shape. Darker than the everything around it. She quickly recognized the shapes. The thing standing over her was a humanoid and it was its boot pinning her to the ground. The frosty grip suddenly grasped her again in that moment of understanding. She even remembered the name she had given to the ice. Fear. She was entangled by it.

'Stop moving.'

The frost clenched her even tighter, but then immediately withdrew. She almost hadn't paid any attention to the voice by itself, but the message they were meant to convey was important. Upon giving it attention, she notices all her limbs were moving in a frenzied series of convulsed motions. She was acting on impulse. She hadn't even realized that her arms and legs were shifting. She locked up every muscle tight, and gradually the tension reached her hands and feet, stopping them in their tracks. Her legs were twisted and spread, her arms threw almost behind her head. The muscles sprang again, contorting. Out of control. She felt a strange clasp on her gut. Not fear, not the ice. Something else. She wasn't completely flat on the ground. There was something on her back which prevented it. The memory struck her. _The Elder Scroll…_

'Nevermind,' said the voice. The boot pressed harder, hindering her movements. 'Who are you?' This time it was less the meaning and more the sound of those words that hit her. The voice was cold, emotionless. The person speaking was a male, a very deep bass. His voice was sonorous and resonant. It echoed and reached ears very clearly, even thought it was little more than a whisper.

Seemingly irrationally, something surged through her mind and all the way to her mouth. Her own name. 'Serana.' She tried to move, but he pressed even harder against her chest as a response. She felt her sternum ache. Slowly, her limbs were being filled with a ravenous frenzy that caused them to move even more. She almost tried to breathe out, but there was no air in her lungs.

'That doesn't tell me much. And…'

She saw the figure's arm darting down and grabbing something on her back and pulling. The familiar touch of the Elder Scroll lightened on her back as the quick fingers snatched it away from where it hung. Her shoulder fell down. Now she was flat against the ground. _No… Not that…_ she thought, her hand trying to scrape his forearm but failing to do so. Not that it would have done much. The figure was protected from head to toe in a dark suit of black and dark grey armor. She couldn't make out the details, but she could guess it wasn't that easy to damage. Still, the instinct to bite him was very strong. Her mouth was drying and snapping involuntarily.

'… This is mine.' The white shape of the Elder Scroll appeared on the side of her head and rose to the figure's waist. 'I don't know what you were supposed to do with this, but it's safer this way. Now, who are you?' Serana remained silent, half confused and half uncertain of what she could say to him to escape that situation. She looked up at the figures face and didn't manage to find his eyes. In their stead there was a black void hiding his entire face. The boot laid on her abdomen pushed very strongly for a second, so much so that she feared for her bones. A surge of pain rushed through her whole body and a moan of pain escaped he mouth while a rush of pure strength almost got the better of her. 'Who are you, I said,' repeated the figure, his voice deepening and assuming a threatening tone.

The ice was gripping her again. Her mind was clouded by a red haze and she had trouble focusing. _He's going to kill me if I don't tell him what he wants to know,_ she realized. He had put together enough to understand everything. _Or has he?_ She wasn't even sure what was happening. As far as she knew, there would be nothing to understand. Her mother should have been there rescuing her, not that man clad in black. _Is he even a man? The accent seems elven, but of no Mer I know of._ There were two things that made his voice so peculiar. The depth of the tone and the hollow sound were probably his alone, but the harsh and vibrant note was determined by his accent. She had never heard anyone speak like that. _I'm diverting… What do I say to him? I don't what him to hurt me again._ 'I… I'm a Volkihar vampire. I'm the daughter of the king.'

The pressure on her sternum decreased very slightly. 'So you're the mysterious daughter of the Lord.' The voice was utterly unemotional, but it sounded strange. As if curious, but not quite.

'Yes…' she replied hurriedly, struggling to control the spasms twisting her body. 'Yes, I could be. Was the Lord's name Harkon?'

'It was.'

'It's him. I'm his daughter. Did…' She trailed off, two sides of her mind clashing. The opposite instincts of trusting him and distrusting him were both strong. She had been slumbering for so long that the prospect of trusting someone was incredible. It was too good to be true, however. She couldn't understand anything of that man. He could have had all the hidden reasons in the world to be there. He didn't even look that surprised, so he might have even known she was there and the only thing unknown to him was her identity. _If I get him to release me and accompany me home. By the Mace of Souls, I don't even know the year. He called my father a lord, so he isn't a king anymore._ She decided to go a little bit further, give him enough information to trust her. 'I apologize, did someone also tell you about a woman being with the Lord?'

'No. Who is she? What's her name?'

'Valerica. She's the Lord's wife.'

There was a brief silence. An ominous one. The air around her seemed to fill with tension, ready to burst at any moment. The red haze started to take over. She locked up her belly's muscles, fearing a new painful push might come.

'You're not telling me the whole truth.' The silence was broken. Nothing had happened, but the figure's voice carried the strength of the absence of sound with it. 'Is this woman merely the Lord's wife or is she your mother?'

She could finally settle on one trait of her savior and capturer. He was very intelligent. Too much so to be toyed around with using simple omissions. He was very actively listening to what she was saying and linking together everything he knew. There seemed to be very few ways of getting out of that situation.

Her eyes focused on the figure very intensely for a moment. _A baleful character, this one,_ she said to herself. Not only he was more suspicious that she'd ever been, but he had a very imposing presence on top of that. While flat against the ground she obviously saw him bigger than and more frightening than he actually was, but even with her feet firmly on the ground she felt little would change. The figure was tall and broad-shouldered. The armor covered him completely. There wasn't a sliver of his skin exposed. Nothing that aided her identify his race. Only hard, dark metal. The suit of armor was an impressive piece of craftsmanship, especially the cuirass. It was almost completely made of thin plates of what she could guess was treated ebony. It didn't look that heavy, but indeed durable and sturdy. The plates were of different shapes and created very complex and intricate weaves by overlapping with one another. The whole piece ended with a tasset, made of a very fine looking scalemail on the front and back and black fabric on the sides. The dominant color was a very dark grey, although there were shades of black and red. The ebony loses its opaque black during the treatment, turning into something closer to a slate grey rather than its original color. It had also been bathed in Daedra blood; the cracks left by the use of that forbidden craft were visible under every overlap, where they left a subtle red trace.

The rest of his armor followed a similar theme. The gauntlets were also made of ebony. The slim, overlapping coatings followed the precise shape of the forearm and the hand. The fingers were extended, with sharp ends. They resembled the shape of a claw or a talon. Same went for the boots, although they were reinforced with black fabric under the sole and the calf. It was clearly designed to walk without making any kind of noise. She could see those more clearly by looking at the one pressed on her chest.

Her gaze wandered again and rested for a moment on the cloak. The figure was bent to the left, and the cape fell down slightly beside him. It complemented the general dark appearance very well. It was probably made of refined pelts, and it was also black. It covered both shoulders and hung all the way down his back, floating above the ground by one foot maximum.

'I won't repeat it a third time. Is she your mother?'

His voice brought her back to his face. Or rather, the general area of the face. The last and perhaps most threatening thing about that mystery man was his headpiece. A flowing hood made of soft cloth, as black as it could possibly get. It seemed to absorb the little light that came in contact with it. Furthermore, it wasn't just dark on its own right: it completely obscured the wearer's face with the shadow it casted down. The result was as absurd as it was intimidating. She surrendered to the simple fact that there was absolutely no way to understand what her enigmatic redeemer looked like. His face was a hollow, black abyss.

The last thing she would do was contradict someone like that.

'Yes…' she whispered at the end. 'She's my mother. I don't know whether she's still with my father or not, and that is why I asked you.'

There was a moment of silence. 'Go on,' said the figure.

'I'm…' she mumbled, unsure of how to proceed that phrase. The mist was blurring her thinking. 'I'm very confused right now. I don't understand…' She looked up at the hooded figure. The words poured out of her mouth thoughtlessly. 'What's happening? Who sent you? Who are you?'

The figure sniggered sinisterly and mirthlessly. Its sound was dark and vibrant. 'Focus, fiend.' His voice, at first still filled with the sound of his laughter, quickly drifted back again into complete frostiness. 'Tell me who this Valerica is. And be brief. You're losing your mind.'

 _What?_ She didn't understand what he was referring to. She managed to get in contact with every sensation for a moment, but the dominant feeling was still instilled by the red mist. It permeated her body and caused all that movement. The figure's boot wasn't there to keep her pinned down, but to prevent her from moving around. _You're losing your mind…_ His words rang loud in her head without him uttering it again. _I'm losing my mind… I'm losing my mind…_

She recognized it. The bloodthirst. She was indeed losing her mind.

Now she knew. Her mind was slowly slipping away from her body, the sliver of surviving conscience was once more being secluded in his condition of helpless witness. She couldn't bear it. Her mind slowly dissociated from her flesh and her instinct until it was nothing more than a meaningless fraction of self submerged somewhere that wasn't the dead flesh which craved blood on its own, demanding the world a fuel for its strength.

Her last focused efforts gave her enough willpower to utter a few words. 'I… Please…' They were unclear and stammered. The red mist was completely clouding all her senses as the sense of presence vanished into a bottomless void. 'Help me…'

And then, nothing. Her hands darted to the legs of the figure, not considering the extreme pain the movement caused by pushing the chest against the boot. Her fingers attempted to sink into the flesh of the mystery man. _Blood… Fresh…_ Small snaps followed by a strange sensation signaled the failure of the attempt. Her long and strong nails had inevitably cracked and shattered when scratching the metallic grieves of the figure. Her head sprang upwards and her teeth snapped very near to the upper part of the boot, but the pressure applied on her torso was too much.

A hand swooped down, gripping her strongly and turning her over. She almost didn't feel the hit against the ground. No cold, no pain. Nothing. A slight sense of orientation loss when the armored fingers gripped her waist strongly once more. Some thoughts raced, extremely far from there. She didn't sense them. It wasn't a language she'd be able to speak in that moment. All she could do was slash aimlessly with her bleeding fingers and snap her teeth like an animal. At times, her mouth reached for her arms as if trying to bite off her own flesh. Something reached her from very far away.

'Drink.'

She could guess that she was on the ground again. Her hands were touching something, but a different thing completely took away her field of vision. Dark red lines, dripping crimson droplets down on the blurred, indistinct grey of the rocky ground. The shimmering shape of a blade retracted from her vision. An airless groan rushed out of her mouth and made her throat vibrate. The hands clawed the blackened neck and her teeth sank deeply into the dead flesh. It was black, and a taste of smolder and smoke seeped down her throat. She drank and drank, feeling the life essence draining from the old host and fueling her. The red mist grew thicker and thicker before stopping its flow. The more she swallowed, the more she liked it. That was the way it was. The predator and the prey. The substance numbed her senses even further, giving her back some satisfaction while claiming her concentration.

The blood was becoming less and less. Soon it would finish. She pulled her mouth away, satiated, her lips dripping red. A louder thought echoed very strongly. _No… Not again…_

Something cold grabbed her chin. A flow of the purest of tranquilities and the deepest of calms streamed in her.

'Sleep,' whispered a cold, emotionless but somehow soothing voice. 'Sweetest dreams, Serana.'

* * *

A/N: And here we are. The final piece needed to began the journey in full force. I don't think I need to spend any words on the point of view change. If you've read everything carefully up to this point, you know the narrative style and you can imagine what changes this switch brings.

A quick note for Lammen Gorthaur about his review on chapter three. Back then, the thought of the "grand entrance" made me laugh a little, because in literature this would be defined as very "low" entrance, with instincts and violence playing such a large part. It's still "grand", but not very heroic.


	7. Chapter VI: The Winterborn's Flame

A/N: Here I am, with something more for everyone of you to sink your teeth into. If you're wondering why I put the Note here and not at the end, as per usual, do a thing. Get to the end, take a moment to process your emotions, good and bad, and then you'll understand my fear of ruining the ending by putting the Note there.  
Thanks for the feedback everyone. There's some things to say regarding Azrael, but I don't want to touch on them now. I'll have them all the next time because we're still in this sort of three-chapter-part that concerns the liberation of Serana. Once this subsection is over, I'll say something more.  
To originalmagicalartist, about your review; yes, _Day Keeper, Night Reaper_ is different from _The Assassin_ in some key areas. After all, everything I post here can be called an experiment. I do think it'll be worth the read, especially as we proceed into the story and delve deeper into the world and the character's minds.

* * *

Chapter VI: _The Winterborn's Flame_

She batted her eyelids. Everything around her was fairly dark, but it all lighted up significantly after a short moment. Everything was suddenly clearer and the colors mode vivid. A very intense orange gave off the most light in the area.

 _Where am I?_ Slowly, her eyes picked up more and more details as she began to sense something of her body. She was sitting down, her back against the wall. There was a serrated spike behind her back which hurt her somewhat, but she felt infinitely better than when she fell had fallen asleep. Everything seemed to be more responsive. Her fingers moved immediately upon trying; all her muscles, thought stiff, seemed to be working as they should. More importantly, she was able to stay still without anything making her move. The bloodthirst had withdrawn, for now. She still had the taste of burned flesh on her lips. Not something she was particularly content with. _I don't think I'd have been able to reach that corpse if not for the mystery man… Speaking of which…_ She turned her head around slightly.

'Behind you.'

The figure's voice had a strange effect on her. On one hand, it caused a wave of heat to flow into her cold body. On the other, it stimulated an opposite sensation of freezing paralysis. She turned slowly to the spot where he presumably stood. She was sitting on a corner and he was behind the angle, so he really was right behind her. She caught just a glimpse of his silhouette, leaning against the wall, just by turning her head. Something else came to mind immediately afterwards. _He noticed I was looking for him by noticing me moving my head. He must be very good at reading others._ That could play both in her favor and its exact opposite. _I still have no idea of what he wants. Where has he brought me? Where am I?_ She needed to clear her mind, but it was really difficult. Intertwining with all those questions, she felt a strange shame of herself. The idea of him having seen her stick her teeth into that corpse and drink didn't make her comfortable.

She took a moment to quiet the utter confusion in her mind by first finding out where they had ended up. Or, better, where he had brought her. The corner where she sat was very close to the highest step of a descending stairway. In truth, after looking around, she noticed that the same descending stairs made up the vast majority of the room, its center being a square of flat, stony ground with a glowing brazier in the middle. It looked like a fighting pit; there were even three decorated seats of the opposite side of the central ring, which was encircled by four pillars with faces carved on them. They were still, apparently, inside the crypt, but she chose to get confirmation.

'Where are we?' she asked, trying to turn her head enough to at least give to impression of looking at him. On second thought, he could have been invisible if not for her empowered vision in the darkness. He probably saw very little of her.

The figure brought his hands behind his back and pressed against the wall, rising straight. He cracked his neck and then his fingers, stepping forward and aligning with and towering over her. 'Further into the cave,' he said, in his unemotional tone. His presence and closeness alone managed to calm her, in spite of the impassive delivery. 'There was a passage leading forward from the carven containing your former prison. I thought it was a good idea to explore it. I have found you, and I wonder what other long forsaken mysteries might be hiding in these walls.' A very dim and yet sharp and bitter sarcasm echoed in his words. 'We've just gone through a hall packed to the brim with Draugrs. This one looks like a ceremonial chamber. It's the resting place of a very powerful forefather.'

'How do you know?'

The figure's faceless hood turned slightly towards her, allowing her to see a sliver of the black void hiding his visage. 'Which part?'

'That someone powerful lies here.'

'Firstly, he's sitting,' he said, bending his knees and resting on his raised ankles. His head was only slightly higher than hers. He pointed his forefinger towards the three seats on the opposite side of the ring. 'Secondly, look. He's the one sat in the black throne.'

Between her and the seat there was a thick curtain of smoke rising from the brazier. She could hardly see anything, especially since the magic strengthening her sight made the flying embers flash regularly in small flares of blinding light. She could still guess the shape of the Draugr by putting together the small things she saw. On the armrest lay a limp arm, skeletal and rotten. The seats next to it were also occupied by similar shapes.

Since her redeemer seemed to know everything about their surrounding, she chose to ask. 'Is he buried here alone? Those seats behind him are taken, I think.'

'They are,' sighed the figure, rising once again. Serana noticed the bow and the longsword fastened on his back as he stood up. 'I would imagine,' he continued, taking her away from the findings, 'they were the lord's favorites. Maybe his bodyguards or sons. They should be a tough match too, but not like the one they served and protect.'

It was rather obvious that he was drawing mental plans for a fight as he spoke. She didn't feel too well, surely not well enough to hold her own in combat, but could still aid him. Instinctively, the spells and curses seemed ready at her hands. She turned again towards him. The mystery man stood perfectly still, probably moving little more than his invisible pupils, and scanned the chamber. She felt strangely embarrassed interrupting him. 'Can we handle them?'

'I've handled things far worse than Draugrs, but there's something else lurking around here,' he said, cryptically. He turned towards her, this time fully. She noticed her Elder Scroll tied to his back belt. 'Can you stand?'

She wasn't too sure of it. She put her hands on the ground, applying a growing pressure on the terrain and pushing with her legs at the same time. _I can manage, but…_ She held out a hand his way, bending her head down. The wait felt infinite and for a moment she wasn't sure he would actually help her, but in the end she felt the cold, hard grip of his gauntlet clenching on her forearm and dragging her up. A she rose, the world around trembled slightly. The room blurred, the light began to sparkle without any reason, but it all went away after a short time.

He let go of her. She noticed that, standing side by side, he still looked quite intimidating. He was taller than her, a hand-breadth more than her roughly. While standing this close she noticed more details in the carving of his armor. The surface was rough and uneven, but it is an inevitable consequence of the quenching the metal in the blood of a Daedra. _Forging this has taken a long time. I wonder who it was that crafted this._ The cloak too was more appreciable from a short distance. It was very smooth and looked very soft, although it was understandably covered in dust.

She remembered something as soon as she turned away. 'Who's lurking around that's more dangerous than those Draugrs?' The tone he had used had left much to the imagination, it felt natural for her to ask.

'No idea,' he said, taking a couple of steps forward. 'Although, if I had to guess, I'd say it's someone of your kind.' He paused briefly, as if considering. She tried to understand, but he was undecipherable when he moved, talked or anything else he did. 'Serana,' he said after a moment, 'is the place you come from definable with "across the sea"?'

Castle Volkihar. _How can he know?_ 'Yes, I suppose it is. How do you know that?'

'Not your concern.'

That hurt her a little bit. _Why are you surprised? You shouldn't trust him either._ Still, something about that managed to offend her. His usual cold tone had taken a very dismissive and brusque note in those few words. Of course, rationality pointed at that being a good factor and in some way it increased the respect she had for him, but on the other hand there had been a small, very small and almost forgotten dream that had been utterly crushed. She forced herself to look away, letting her gaze wander over the ring and the three undead warriors that would have been their next opponents.

Those thoughts managed to sidetrack her away from the gloomy ruminations. After being asleep for so long, she was surprised she still remembered how to move her body. In that moment, she had to proceed with every little splinter of hope and confidence she had left, because she knew nothing of what was happening. _The current situation is that I'm being rescued by an unknown fighter with an unknown motive and that is treating me sometimes well and at times not so well for reasons also unknown. Moments ago he was about to kill me and know he's saving me. I need to focus. There's something going on here._ The grown woman started to take hold, pushing the little girl into the unconscious side of her mind along with all the fantasies and dreams she held to. _First we get out of here, then we get what we can out of him. It won't be easy, but we'll be able to. We surely outage him by ten times minimum._

'So what's the plan?' she asked. 'Do we take them down from afar or do we bring the fight to them?'

The figure turned around, very slowly. She had the doubt he was leering, very slightly. 'A change of heart?' he asked wryly. 'You're taking the initiative. Also…' His voice hardened a little. 'Don't backstab me. If you do, you die. Clear?'

'Yes.'

'Good.' He turned around, hesitating shortly. He had maybe stolen a glance at her from under the hood, but there was no way of knowing. 'The plan is that I eliminate the two bodyguards silently while you hold the strong one for a while. As soon as I'm done, I'll help you finish him off.' He paused momentarily, leaving her some time to object if anything was wrong. She didn't say anything, so he turned to the other side. 'Wait a moment before moving. As soon as you engage the Draugr, I'll kill the other two.'

He drew the dagger from its sheath on his belt and moved forward, prowling on the edge of the light and keeping to the shadow. The armor didn't look heavy but it was still made of metal, and despite that he made no noise walking. She tried to focus on her supernatural hearing and she heard something, but she never would have imagined it was him making that muffled sound, had she not known. She listened more closely and noticed that he was also holding his breath. While the hunger was stronger she could probably also hear his heart beat, but she had just fed and those feral senses weren't working as efficiently.

She observed him continuously as she made her first steps down the stairs, towards the central ring. The mystery man's hurtful words had been the first icy slap that had reawakened her rational mind, which she had developed precisely living situations like these. She looked at the frame of her redeemer lurking in the shadows and endless questions crowded her mind. _Who is he? What race does he belong to? Why is he here?_ Unending mysteries piled on top of each other, creating a unique web of unknown information that would be so hard to unravel. She had understood some things just by observing him. There are things about a person that cannot be hidden, no matter how hard one tries. The coolness with which he had created a strategy and the clarity he had displayed in explaining her pointed at the fact that he was someone used to make decisions and draw plans. _A strategist, a planner and possibly a leader,_ she summarized.

She stepped down into the central ring, feeling the heat coming from the brazier in the middle of the stony arena. Old coals were burning underneath the grate, sending sparkling embers through the bent iron bars and causing them to heat up, taking an igneous color. The light of the fire danced on the pillars surrounding the old fighting field. The fire crackled. She only then understood how banal her savior's intuition had been. _Of course there's someone here…_ she thought, shaking her head in disbelief of her own lack of logic. _This fire couldn't possibly stay lit for this long time. Because it's been a long time, I feel it. Someone has kindled it. Recently._ A someone that was obviously already known to the mystery man.

Serana noticed only in that very moment that she had completely lost track of him. She turned to the place where she had last seen him and went in a straight line towards the three seats were the Draugr slept, but she didn't catch even a glimpse of him. A number of things started tormenting her mind, making her hesitate to awake the ancient bonewalker sitting on the black throne. _Where is he? Has he abandoned me? Has he fled?_ Those fears were, again, quickly put into silence by a sufficient quantity of logic. The figure would have no reason to leave her and flee after having carried her that far and possibly having risked his own life doing so. It didn't seem like a rational thing to do and he was one of the most rational persons she had ever seen. That simple assumption was needed to quell her growing anxiety, even though his motives were still obscure to her.

She resumed her mission, the task he had given her. The Draugr sat, eyes closed, on the black throne. His arms lay lifelessly on the armrests, the body dried and desiccated. The flesh had decomposed, leaving the mummified muscle bundles and the decayed sinews completely exposed. Porous bones made up the vast majority of what remained of the old lord buried there. The helm with two horns on its sides fell further down that it should because the hair and the skin previously keeping it higher had completely dissolved. A huge battleaxe rested beside the bonewalker, laid on the backrest.

She looked for something. The ground was rocky, there had to be something she could throw to wake it up. She didn't want to use a spell, which might have waked and alarmed the two other undead next to her target. Beside the closest pillar there was a small area covered by moss. She moved closer, noticing a drop of water falling from the ceiling. There was a small rock, covered in dirt and wet with water, that looked big enough to do the job. She bent and picked it up, giving it a critical glance and holding it with the end of her fingers.

Upon looking at her bloodied nails, she remembered what had happened just before she fed on the corpse. She had attacked the figure, to little avail but she had still attacked him. Normally, she would have overpowered him easily with her unnatural strength, but something had prevented it from happening. Something he was aware of. It might have been the extreme bloodlust or the remnants of the spell imprisoning her. Whatever the case, she had lost control, attacked him and lost the struggle. He hadn't seemed too upset about it though. Most people would have probably been scared away or horrified by what she had done, but not him. He probably knew how to master her kind and, more importantly, how to master people in general. He wasn't afraid to interact with her as if she was completely normal. However, he had set very clear boundaries in regards to what she was allowed to and what she was forbidden to know. _Is he my father's agent? No, he wouldn't have asked anything about him. Although, if he was just paid and send here than it could explain this…_ The possibilities tightened. He was either her father's thug or someone that was running his own investigation.

She focused. She needed to. She threw the stone a couple of times in the air to feel the grip and then aimed carefully at the head of the Draugr, casting the pebble with all the strength of her arm. A great deal of strength. Her vampiric might wasn't always present, it arose when she needed it. Thus, since she hadn't had any need of it since she had awakened, she had almost forgotten how much power she could call for. There had been the time when she attacked the figure, but then again, she wasn't fully aware of almost anything in that moment. An outside observer of her own actions, almost. This time it was different. The throw was fast and calculated. And hit with decent precision.

The rock bent the black helmet and snapped in two shards on impact. The bonewalker moved quickly in a strange spasm and its eyes lit up. A brutal white light burned in them as the undead rose from its seat and glanced down at her. The limp arms moved towards the battleaxe, readily grabbing it and raising it high above the head of the wielder. _I wish I had waken up feeling that battle-ready,_ she thought with a sad grin.

The Draugr lumbered towards her, staggering every time he had to go down a step of the stairs. The monster had a single vambrace protecting its left forearm and a pair of ruined boots covering his calves and feet. The shoulders were also shielded by iron pauldrons with rich, flowing engravings in the metal. She unsheathed the dagger hanging by her side and stood still, waiting for the enemy to come closer. Fire would have been useful in that instance, but she had never learned to master the flames. On the other hand, she could have drawn the bonewalker near the brazier and threw it on the scorching metal.

There was little time left to plan. The two bony hands of the Draugr closed a little on the axe's shaft and brought the blade behind the bonewalker's head. As they started the swing, she realized the strike would be too strong to parry reliably, even with her strength. She positioned the dagger in a way that would cause the axe to slide higher than her head. It worked. The edge hissed a couple inches above her hair, leaving her some time to back away. The Draugr let go of the axe with one hand, completing the strike with only its right arm absorbing the strength of the parried blow. She stepped back, making sure her enemy would need to walk a few paces before getting in range. The undead did exactly as intended and rushed forwards with uneasy and heavy steps.

That was her moment. Before the monster could even wind for another round she dashed forward and stabbed it in the withered gut, rotating the dagger and destroying the dry ligaments. The bonewalker groaned horrifically and tried to hit her with the bottom of the axe's shaft, but she was quicker and stroke her enemy's head with her forearm, causing the undead to stagger backwards. She lunged again, slicing away at the chest. The Draugr snarled strangely and gave a sudden and very strong push with the weapon's shaft, aiming at her head. Her unnaturally quick reflexes allowed her to avoid the initial hit, but she failed to predict the circular movement the undead did using, once again, the bottom of the shaft.

The barbed end of the metallic rod struck her on the cheek. She was quick enough to move in the blow's direction and avoid the full strength of the impact, but she still felt the skin lacerating and the cool mixture of substances flowing in her vessels starting to drip out of the wound. Her vision blurred slightly. She stumbled backwards, trying to put some distance between her and the monster. But from what he could see, the Draugr wasn't trying to close the gap. It had spread its arms and was groaning strangely.

' _Fus Ro!'_

 _What is that?_ was the only thing she had the time to think before the blue circle of force struck her. The hit pushed her chest and abdomen backwards, threatening to crush both her ribcage and pelvis bone. The sensation proved, in the end, far different from the real outcome. None of her bones broke or snapped, but her feet couldn't remain firmly in contact with the ground. She tumbled rearward, carried for a moment and then continuing in a desperate attempt to regain her balance, swinging her arms around to stop herself from falling flat on her back.

The monster produced an awful sound that vaguely resembled a laughter and grabbed the battleaxe. It was ready to march her way and finish her off.

' _Zu'u, Dovahkiin ahrk Thuri,_ ' roared a voice in the chamber, strong as roll of thunder, ' _laan aan grah._ ' The Draugr snarled and turned around before taking a single step back. It was looking at somewhere between the two opposite pillars. The echo had barely died off when the sound blared again. ' _Krif uv Qiilaan._ '

Serana completely lost perception of her balance upon hearing that voice echoing through the chamber. She fell down on the stairs and her dagger dropped from her hand, tumbling a few inches away from her hand. But she didn't need it. The bonewalker's attention was somewhere else, towards the voice that had spoken. She didn't know that language and had no clue as to what those words meant, but they carried a very strong feeling of power. Her surprise grew even more when the Draugr, the mindless creature she thought it to be, dropped the battleaxe and kneeled down in submission, letting its head dangle down.

The mystery man himself stepped out of the shadows in front of the Draugr. He held the dagger in his hand, a straight blade with a winding, barbed knuckle guard and a very highly refined open guard. The figure stepped calmly into the ring, covering a very large distance with each step and swiftly and silently moving forward. The cloak flapped languidly behind his back. He strode right in front of the monster.

' _Aav dilon, Nikriin._ ' The mystery man grabbed the Draugr's head and slashed with the dagger, severing the neck clean from the body. The blade hissed sinisterly but made very little noise when cutting the bone and sinews of the bonewalker. The figure gripped the monster on the shoulder and pushed it towards the central brazier. The exposed leg, upon touching the searing metal bar, caught flames instantly. A fountain of sparks rose in the air as the body began to burn. A new sparkling flare flashed when the ankle, consumed by the heat, collapsed and caused the whole leg to fall on the rod. The blazes grew in height and light, slowly engulfing the entire frame of the undead, a once revered and proud lord that was now burning to ash. The burnt parts of the desiccated body fell through the grate and into the fire below, blowing a gust of smolder through the bars before forever being forgotten and reduced to cinders.

The weak sizzling of the fire was the only sound which continued to play out in the chamber once the final pieces had disappeared from her sight.

Serana's gaze moved from the smoldering remains of the Draugr to the frame of the mystery man. He was quietly and very calmly putting away the dagger. The odd thing about him was that there wasn't anything even remotely epic or dramatic about him. The feeling he gave was of a very deep rooted connection with the world and its not so pleasing characteristics. The beheading of the bonewalker hadn't been made theatrical in any way, only clean and effective. Memories of home came to her, and she remembered the pompous tone of the nobles and the serious, solemn way everyone spoke in. Her father was used to it, while her mother had taught her to be distrustful of those formalities. More by example than by word, but still. Her redeemer was everything but formal. Everything he did seemed to be direct and to the point, at the cost of sometimes being brash. In that moment, standard etiquette demanded him to walk over to her and lend her a helping hand. But he didn't. He knew she was fine. Something else, more important or at least more interesting than her, seemed to have grabbed his attention.

He climbed the stairs, going to a corner of the chamber that housed a concave wall with ancient carving on it. There seemed to be nothing special about it. To her, at least. While watching him striding upward, her mind clouded again with a plethora on unanswered questions. _First things first_ , she told herself, sliding the dagger back into the sheath and getting up. With her priorities straight, she walked towards the elevation where the three seats stood. She had fought and almost lost to that Draugr, but there were two more on the other thrones that she wanted to see. The figure must had killed them. She could have learned something from their corpses, then.

While her thoughts lingered around the fight with the bonewalker, she thought about the strange magic the monster had used. For once, he hadn't used any magicka. She hadn't felt anything, not even a tiny alteration in the surrounding links with Aetherius, and she was a mage with two decades worth of training and a hundred years of practice. The Draugr had also channeled the spell directly through its mouth, which was strange. The easiest and most used conduit are the hands. Other places were remarkably difficult, some completely impossible. She had no familiarity with that kind of magic.

She approached the three seats. Two of them were still occupied by a pile of bones. They weren't of a Draugr though, but of reanimated skeletons. The remains were scattered around, piled up on the thrones. The magic which keeps them alive usually is the same that maintains their bones together. In breaking the link with the necromantic energies, the parts of the undead dismantle. She didn't notice the cause of their death immediately, but after a while noticed that both had a very deep and thin cut on their first vertebrae. That small incision had been enough to sever the magical link. _This man knows quite a lot about the undead. He knew what to do with me when he saw me freaking out because of the bloodthirst. He gets more interesting by the minute. And now… What's he doing now?_

The figure stood in front of the concave wall positioned higher up in the hall. The surface was incredibly smooth and there were strange runes carved in it. He seemed very focused on those glyphs. _Almost as if he could read them,_ she realized. It seemed a wild guess at first, but the utter motionlessness of his body suggested a very intense concentration. She looked better, but there was nothing else on the wall, only those symbols. There was nothing else she could see that could have possibly attracted his attention. _What are you up to?_

She walked towards him, careful not to approach him exactly from behind but neither to get in his way. Even though all she could see of him was the smooth fabric of the hood and then the black cloth of the cloak, but there was something about him that signaled to stay away and leave him to his investigation, whatever it may be. She intended to ignore that signal. More than anything, she needed to test where the boundaries between him and her lied. She stepped a little closer. 'Hey,' she quietly said, just to let him know that she was there.

A long moment passed. It felt like an hour to her. 'What is it?' he finally rejoined, shifting his head very slightly in her direction.

'Nothing,' she said, looking at the wall herself and observing the strange runes. 'I was wondering what you were doing here.'

'I was reading.'

Even though it wasn't a complete surprise, and objectively speaking it was one of the most logical solutions, she was still a bit startled. 'You understand those runes? I've never even seen them before.'

'Impossible,' said the figure, quite lapidary. 'You're a Nord, there's no way you've never seen draconic inscriptions.'

'So this is… Dragon Tongue? Written?'

'It is.' The figure stepped to the side, as if looking at something from a different angle, but soon came back beside her. 'Had the World Eater already been banished when you were locked away?'

She couldn't regain her capability to think for a moment. _That came out of nowhere,_ she thought, suppressing every sign of shock that might have appeared on her face. 'No… I've never heard of such a thing.' It was something on the lines as the question regarding her home, which meant she wasn't allowed to inquire. She didn't make the same mistake, and didn't ask anything.

A quiet and wry laugh echoed against the wall and then inside the whole chamber. 'You'll hear of it as soon as we get out of here,' he said. There was a knowing, ironic tone to his words that grabbed her attention. She could immediately guess that there was something big behind those words, but she already knew him well. It wouldn't be him to satisfy her curiosity. Not in that moment, at the very least.

'If you understand those, tell me what's this inscription. Is it a story?' she asked.

'It's a memorial,' he said. ' _Het nok kopraan do Svolo wo piraak mulaag wah kriin Dovah nuz ni gaan wah kriin pogaan_ ,' he read. His voice sounded slightly altered, deeper and with something alien in its sound. It was the same voice that had called out the Draugr and had forced it to submit. 'Here lies the body of Svolo, who possessed strength to kill a Dragon but not the stamina to kill many.' As he translated, his voice returned to his normal, deep, sonorous and vibrant bass.

There were too many questions. She had to choose carefully. 'Where did you learn to read it? There aren't many that are able to do that, if I remember correctly.'

'You do. As far as I'm aware, the people able to speak and write in that idiom can be counted on one hand only.'

'Only five?'

'Unless you've got six digits, yes.'

Again, that pushed her away a little. His company wasn't an easy one, although strangely pleasant, reassuring and incredibly insightful. His use of words and the language in general had gotten really abstract a couple of times, and that last witty remark and confirmed her that he was pitiless towards those that didn't keep up with his reasoning. Surprisingly enough, something immediately came to her mind: a million different ways to excuse his behavior. She crushed those thought relentlessly. _Why do I think he needs excuses? One look at him is enough. He doesn't need any excuses to be what he is. He doesn't need to prove his worth to anyone and isn't trying to get on everyone's good side. Especially not mine, I should remember that._ Something else occurred to her. It came to mind at once when she thought about the brief exchange. She had started it with a question, and he had found a way to not answer it. By making a comment after, she had set herself up for being tricked into hearing something else. Had he done that intentionally, then he was really trying to be secretive. If he had done that out of habit, it meant he was used to be elusive.

Despite everything, she felt a connection to him. _I wonder if he feels similarly or if it is just me._ There was something that made her felt bound to him. He was the first living being he had seen after an unknown time which she had spent slumbering inside a stone, but it was more than that. He looked and felt promising, in two ways. The first, more down to earth way, was the calm manner in which he acted. He moved slowly, spoke clearly and unhurriedly and was took his time with everything. His attitude was affecting her, and she was usually someone that rushed from one thing to another without ever stopping. She had learned to hide that to an extent, but not fully. The second and more complex way was the amount of turbulent energy that seemed to linger around him. He was someone with a complicated personality. _Difficult to know would be an understatement,_ she thought, _I still know nothing about him._ That sense of mysteriousness enticed her and, in her mind, it made for a great person.

The mystery man breathed deeply. 'We're near the exit,' he said, moving his head towards the door opposite to where they had entered. It was open. 'There's some cold air coming in.'

'I can't wait to get outside.' She followed his gaze to the wooden door. The fact that it was opened made her feel a strange worry, but she didn't pay much attention to it. 'I haven't missed the sunlight, but I have missed fresh air.'

'How come?' asked the figure, stepping in front of her and walking towards the door. 'You don't even breathe.'

'I still have the sense of touch. We merely don't need to breathe, that doesn't mean we can't do it. The pleasure of some air rushing into the lungs doesn't go away.'

He didn't reply. She was able to get some ideas together of the general lines around which he acted, but the reasons were still obscure. It was as if he calibrated the energy he expended extremely carefully, not even answering or giving any kind of feedback if none was needed. In that case, politeness asked for a reaction, which he hadn't given. He had kept walking up towards the door.

But he stopped, suddenly.

Serana saw the figure's hand dart to the grip of the longsword, his fingers closing strongly on the smooth black fabric that covered it. His right foot moved backwards. He shifted the weight on the same leg, assuming a defensive stance. Drawing the blade from his back and brining it by his side, he simultaneously brought his left hand closer to his chest and half-closed it into a loose fist. She lost sight of it, although she could swear she saw a weak light coming from his chest.

 _What's going on?_ Something he had seen had made him react that way. _And here I was, thinking about low reactivity. When he needs to, he acts very quickly._ She imitated him and drew the dagger from her belt with a swift movement. If something could make that man do what he did, it had to be something extremely dangerous. She felt a great deal of fear taking hold of her. As it happened so often, she completely lost control of her thinking. Mixed images appeared before her eyes, images both of death, blood and slaughter. She began questioning what was hiding behind that corner. Draugr? Undead? Or someone else? But who would venture that far into those caves? Her kind, like he had mentioned? _The braziers were lit and the door was opened,_ she remembered. There was someone in there, and the figure had known it since the beginning. He had moved fast, but he wasn't frightened. His movement, thought swift, had been measured and precise. He was still calm, whereas she wasn't. She was scared.

'What's happening? Who did you see?'

The figure didn't respond immediately. He took a step back, this time putting all the weight on his left leg. He stretched his neck leftward, looking at the door, and then turned very slightly towards her. 'Are those your friends, by chance?'

She didn't understand at first. Three silhouettes came out of the dark beyond the wooden door. They walked lightly on the ground, making very little noise. Even in the dark, some pieces of their armors glimmered weakly, reflecting the light of the fire in the middle of the pit. The dancing glow sometimes stroke their faces, revealing their pale visages and bloodshot, bright red eyes. In the shifting shadows, their burning irises seemed to hover freely while they descended the steps and approached them. Her mind immediately went back to the figure's question. She didn't know the answer. Were those her friends? Were those vampires there to help her? She didn't know. _On whose side I am?_ She couldn't tell. The indecision paralyzed her.

'My lady Serana.' She raised her gaze and met the eyes of the bald man walking ahead of the other two, which were women. The signs of the infection, though less noticeable than one of those diseased beings who dared assume the name of vampire, were there. _A quarter-breed,_ she thought. The cross-shaped lips were testament. Still, he was her kin. But was he her ally? 'Our search has finally come to a close,' said the man in a solemn tone. 'Your father was sure we would find you, and he was right. He knew I would be the one to bring you back to him.'

'Really?' the figure intervened. She looked at how that single word, utter in a whispered titter, managed to capture the attention of the three vampires. There was something about that word, maybe its echo or the irony in the tone, that compelled abandon everything and deal with its reciter first. 'I remember hearing those same words,' said the figure, 'from your friend and rival Lokil, just a few hours ago.'

'You shouldn't have meddled in our affairs in the first place, mortal,' spat one of the women standing in the back. 'Lokil is a—'

'Was a fool,' the mystery man cut her off, finishing the phrase without even having heard its completion. 'He's nothing but ashes, as we speak. He died by my hand and so will you.'

'Arrogant weakling,' hissed the man in the front. 'You don't know the extent of Lord Harkon's power, and of one thing I'm sure. You wouldn't like to find out. We have the Lord's favor and we will bring his long forgotten daughter back to him, safe and sound.'

The mystery man gave a gloomy chortle. 'The Lord's favor…' he sneered, before his voice trailed off. 'Something everyone says they have but that no one thinks he or she has. Long centuries of living death doesn't make one more intelligent, it seems,' he whispered, as if he was talking to himself. The hood shifted. His gaze was probably fixed in the burning eyes of the vampire. 'You're too late,' he said. 'I'll be the one bringing Serana to her father. You, since you're on my way, will die. Right here. Right now.'

Serana didn't move. The mystery man didn't attack the vampires, didn't charge in their direction nor did he continue to face them. Her three kin made some space, hateful groans appearing on their faces. White, sharp fangs glimmered in the shimmering light of the fire while they unsheathed their weapons. The figure hinged on his left feet, where he had shifted the weight, and spun around. He turned towards her, towards the woman he had saved. She felt his gaze on him, and she couldn't do anything.

' _Iiz Slen Nus!_ '

It was as if a roll of thunder had come out of his mouth. She remembered that magic. The Draugr had used it just a moment before, but that was different. It was unimaginably stronger, it completely outdid what the bonewalker had done. Even before seeing what happened, she could tell. There had been a shift into a level of reality that no magic she knew could do. The initial strength of the sound and the sudden gust that came her way made her tumble back. But then, the gust became unnaturally chilly.

A breeze as cold as the winter reached her and clang to her. She looked down at her body. Ice was emerging out of nothingness and it was imprisoning her. It crept up her frame and trapped her entirely. Before she knew it, she was unable to move. Immobilized, she felt herself falling helplessly to the ground. There was absolutely nothing she could do. She tried to call for any amount of magicka, but she didn't manage. Everything was completely frozen in ice, the only exception being her mind. That still worked. And was trapped in a layer of ice not less thin that the one that entombed her body. The ice cage hit the ground and stopped. She felt nothing, aside from the cold.

It would seem impossible to turn, unleash such powerful magic on your own ally, turn around again towards your enemies and start killing. But as she regained some hold on the outer world, she realized that the figure had done it. The killing had began. She was so caught up on what had happened to her that she hadn't heard the groans and the growls. She hadn't heard the whistle of the blade either. The ice rendered it difficult to make out what was happening, especially since ever her pupils appeared to be hindered in their movement by the cold. _Weren't I a vampire, this ice would be eating away at my flesh. Any common mortal would twisting in pain. Or trying to._ But that wasn't about her. It was about the mystery man. He had taken control of the situation, and was now dictating the rules of it as it unfolded.

One of the vampires already lay dead on the ground. It was the female one who hadn't spoken. Serana wasn't able to understand what exactly had come to pass, but she saw rather clearly that her kin was on the ground, cut down by a longsword's slash. The blade was by the figure's side, blazing weakly. The vampire's blood coated it, and it was evaporating because of the intense heat. She didn't remember having seen a fire enchantment imbuing the weapon, but there wasn't any time to think about that. If she wanted to have any chances of following the struggle, she had to assume as true everything she saw. Besides, there wasn't much else she could do anyway. With everything he knew of him, she could take for granted that he knew the ice wouldn't kill her. The figure, for unknown reasons, had chosen to keep her away from danger. _Or avoid me stabbing him in the back…_ she thought, and a grip stronger than the frost trapping her seized her heart. _I would never have done that… But he still prevented it from happening._

The figure backed away from the dead vampire, creating some space between him and the two remaining enemies. His left hand slowly wrapped around the grip of the longsword just above the right one while he lowered the tip of the weapon, pointing it at his adversaries. The vampires stayed at a safe distance from him, casting repeated glances at their fallen companion. The bald one was groaning, his teeth coming out of his mouth. Nothing they could do managed to scare the figure, who kept his distance and adjusted to every movement they made, always keeping the same distance from the two foes. He wasn't giving them a chance to catch him together. They were two against one and they were probably stronger and faster, but after the death of one of them they seemed to respect his capability to pull off such a swift kill twice again.

The bald vampire growled. 'You should never have come here,' he hissed. 'This is our affair and it should be solved among us. You and your friends won't be able to stop the Lord, for his plans encompass way more than you could ever imagine.'

'If he has plans, tell me,' replied the figure, coldly and provokingly. 'I've struck down your friend. You'll fall any moment now. I'm stronger than you think.' The figure eyed the two enemies trying to surround him and he stepped to the side, resuming the positioning. 'It could be useful to have me as an ally. But first, you tell me what your Lord's plans are. I might agree with them and help you willingly.'

The vampire laughed hoarsely. 'A mortal won't agree to Lord Harkon's plan. They'll bring out supreme kind to the greatness they deserve, and there won't be any room left for you, mortals. My master's plans are of no interest to you.'

'They are. But he hasn't told you, has he?' The figure's voice assumed a slight wry tone. He had seen past that laughter, as had Serana herself. She new her father's court. Apparently they hadn't changed during the years. That bald man she didn't know, but he didn't behave differently from the others. When confronted with the truth, he seemed to shake a little. 'The Lord hasn't presented his great vision to you,' continued the mystery man, rephrasing and relentlessly exploiting that weak spot. 'You're not the favorite after all, it seems. But this changes nothing.' He stepped ahead, bringing the grip of the longsword closer to his chest. 'Your plans obviously involved the Elder Scroll, which is in my possession. Everything else is meaningless. Your living death ends here.'

The figure brought all his weight on the forward leg and dashed forward. His hands rose and the blade followed their movements, its tip aiming at the throat of the bald vampire. The movement had been fast and unpredictable, but it was a vampire he was up against. The man was quick enough to react thanks to his unnatural reflexes, but the strike from above he tried to deliver didn't look effective from the start. Serana didn't know a lot about sword fighting, but she knew the basics. The figure had put the weapon in a way that protected him from strikes such as his enemy's one.

Everything went down as fairly predictable. The vampire's blade hit the elaborate crossguard of the adversary's sword and managed to at least spoil the figure's aim and deviate the strike, which would had otherwise been fatal. The longsword shook in its trajectory and slashed the shoulder, just beside the neck. If unhindered, it would have pierced right through the throat.

A scream came from the vampire as the figure retracted his blade and leapt back. The blade was coated in even more blood, but this time the sword hadn't burned. _There's something up with that enchantment_ , she thought. That told her two things. First and foremost, that blade wasn't only a masterfully crafted item but also one containing a very powerful and possibly very complex magical contraption. Second, if he had ignited the sword before and he hadn't done that now, it could have meant he was, in a way, aiming to miss. Despite the strike looking so on point, he calculated to not be fatal. That same strike to the shoulder with flames on the weapon would have probably killed the bald man, but he hadn't done it. And, as everything seemed to go with that individual, he had had a very good reason to keep him alive and only injured. As of now, the vampire was gripping his wound with an unnecessary strength and making even more blood flow out of it. The substance was quite light colored. _They have fed recently,_ Serana was able to tell.

The other vampire, the woman, was now on the mystery man. She had a spiked mace, a weapon Serana remembered from her childhood. It was a popular weapon design when she was locked away. She could presume that club was that old and that there was someone maintaining them. The weapon was being swung around by the vampire in a way that was making the figure backtrack, though in a very controlled way. One feet after the other, but he spent more time with his left foot forward. He ducked the strikes, keeping the blade very close to his shoulder. There were moments when he rested the weapon on the left pauldron. In any other scenario, that would have threatened the enemy, but the vampire didn't see to care or even notice. She swung once, twice and three times. 'Die, mortal!'

Serana understood that, as always, the figure had a plan.

The mace swopped down. The mystery man dodged readily, and the strike missed him by a hair. His fingers opened slightly, signaling the beginning of an attack. He moved the wrists in one, sudden strike that drew a downward slash and then he brought the blade to the right side, changing up the guard and looking for another opportunity. The vampire moved her weapon around, trying to keep track of his movements and restraining from blindly attacking at the same time. The figure slashed rightwards, making her dodge and back off. The other vampire was slowly rising again and his grip on his sword looked strong enough. Serana could see the mystery man casting occasional glances over to his other enemy.

The female vampire's mace traced another sweep, and once again he evaded. The figure started a move. An extremely fast move. Serana had troubles keeping up. The sword seemed to vanish because of the speed at which it was being whirled at. The only way to keep track of the flurry of hits was to pay attention to the moments when it reached the target. The blade hit once on the shaft of the mace. The steely shadow disappeared again. The figure moved his arms and hands again, making it twirl. A flat hit reached the shoulder of the woman, throwing her off balance. She raised her head, and Serana focused for a moment on her groan. And just like her, she ignored the last hit.

There was a hard and then a softer sound. The figure's blade was aimed at the ground, the pommel closer to his right side and the tip pointing left. Near it lied an object. It was a human forearm. With still the hand and the vambrace attached. Serana's gaze shot up at the woman's arm, which had been cut at the height of the elbow. The severed flesh was smooth, ironically. The cut had been incredibly clean and had hacked through the thin protection with no problems. Blood was gushing from the stump.

The vampire gave off a deafening scream. Her fingers opened and the mace dropped to the ground, clanging as it repeatedly bounced off the stairs. The woman's face contracted, took on an expression that wasn't human anymore. The bared teeth were more like an animal's as it defended its life and the way the arms twitched resembled the motions of a Hagraven. With another scream, this time of rage, she slashed with her hands at the figure, trying to reach him with her talon-like nails. The mystery man stepped back and pointed the sword in her direction.

The vampire did something he clearly wasn't expecting. She closed her arms on the weapon, as if embracing it. _She's completely frenzied,_ thought Serana. She tried to kick the ice and move, but the cage was still there, still inescapable. She would have liked to bare her teeth too. _If only he knew how much I'd like to get out of here and help him…_ she thought, feeling a mixture of tenderness and blind rage flowing freely inside her. She couldn't do anything. She couldn't even control her own emotions. There was something about being physically inert that affected her reasoning too. As of now, she could only watch as the vampire basically speared herself on the sword. It would kill her, but it was causing some collateral damage, and the figure had noticed it. The bald vampire was now standing and coming for him from the side. With the sword trapped in the suicidal embrace, he couldn't defend himself with it.

One of his hands let go of the longsword. Serana followed it, observing where he was going to grab. The fingers moved nimbly down the armor and reached the belt, gripping the handle of the dagger and pulling it up without looking. He twirled it, changing the grasp and holding the tip in the vampire's direction. She was unable to guess if the bald man simply didn't see it or if he willingly ignored it, but he ended his charge by impaling himself on the short blade. Much like the woman had done. _Why did he do that?_ she wondered, but then noticed something. _Curses… He has both hands occupied and can't react without dropping his weapons. They have another weapon. Please… No._

The bald vampire pushed himself nearer to the figure lunging his hands on his head. His left one gripped the mystery man's hood and pulled it away from his head while the other clenched around his throat. A wave of long, wavy, coal black hair fell down on the figure's back as soon as the hood was taken off. He was holding the arm gripping the dagger still, despite the desperate situation, and was still acting lucidly and calmly, but there was little left to do from what she could tell. The vampire thrust his head forward and snapped his jaws, closing his teeth on the enemy's throat.

Funny. She expected the figure to scream or shriek. She almost hoped he would lose his calm in a situation like that. But he didn't. Only a deep, raspy growl escaped his throat as the vampire drank from him. The woman, on the other side, backed away. The blade had penetrated her plate and a large wound marked her chest. Nevertheless, she wasn't a danger anymore. Not that it mattered, because the bald man was still stuck to the mystery man like a leech on its prey. The hand of the figure was circling, carving deep wound with the dagger, but the vampire wasn't backing off. Serana felt a strong sensation rushing through her body, from the belly to the head. _Is this it? Will he kill him like that?_

She wanted to look away. Bring her gaze far from that scene. However, just as she was surrendering, something else happened. The bald vampire was shaken by a powerful shudder, his knees bent slightly and his hands lost the grasp on what they were holding. He retracted his mouth from the figure's throat with a sudden movement before quaking again. He had his mouth full and his jaws contracted. A fit of cough got the better of him, and when his mouth opened all the blood he had ingested poured on the floor. The sound he produced was dry and horrific, a groan mixed with hisses of pain.

Serana was stunned. _What's going on? What in blazes is happening?_ She tried to remember something, anything that had that effect. She wasn't even sure what exactly was happening. _How did that even happen? He doesn't breathe, so even if some blood has gotten into the lungs it shouldn't be an issue._ Not knowing anything about the figure, there was little she could deduce. It could have been his race, a spell, a mutation in his life substance, the dagger that had pierced the esophagus and caused the body to throw the liquid out in any way possible. She couldn't be too sure of anything. It wasn't a poison, since vampire are immune to them. That was just it. _A reaction of that kind would happen only if something is actively destroying the body._

Another fit of cough made the vampire quiver. He put his feet back and tumbled away from the figure, in the general direction of the female vampire. Blood continued to drip from his mouth, as if he was unable to swallow it. The large, gaping wound on his shoulder bled profusely, but he didn't seem to have the strength to reach for it with his hands. All he could do was stare at the figure with his eyes, burning with hunger and with a primal fear that Serana knew all too well. It was the ice. She had named it thus, but she knew it was common to all vampires she knew of. It's the fear an animal might have. When their rational side gives way to instinct, their life systems readjust and rational fear and anxiety are eliminated, but that sort of panic rises. In situations like that, it's the only thing keeping the thirst at bay. Right now, it was overpowering the bald man's mind.

' _Yol Toor Shul!_ '

The air was shredded and the ground quaked. That magic again. It caught her by surprise, because she was looking away from the figure. The same powerful tremor in the fabric of reality and the same, complete absence of tears in Aetherius that made it so incomprehensible. It was the third time she witnessed it being used in a relatively short amount of time, but it didn't stun her less because of that. The figure, while the vampire reeled back, had put on his hood again as well as he could. The right side was lowered significantly more than the other one. Even that looked deliberate, since it was the angle at which Serana saw him. He was hiding his face from her, it seemed. The piece of flowing, smooth and bloodstained cloth hid his face and more importantly his mouth, where that magic seemed to originate.

Red-hot flames formed from naught and were blown forward. The blazing tempest surged violently in the air and against the ground, heating the rock until it became incandescent. She was completely dazzled at the sight of the fire raging onward, blustering away the dust and burning everything with an unseen ferocity. It was strange, but those flames looked so alive. They were hungry, ravenous. They searched something to cage and in their igneous coils. The scorching flood reached the vampires and as it touched them it disintegrated them instantly, dissolving their armor and dead flesh into ashes in one, terrifying wave of unconceivable power.

The firestorm gushed across the hall, hurling their embers everywhere and consigning them to oblivion.

The roar of the flames gave way to the crackling of the fire. There were little things, small patches of moos, little plants and remains which had caught the edge of the conflagration and caught fire without being destroyed by it. They burned slowly, like the wick of a candle, the flame swaying barely in the still air of the cavern. The stone struck by the firestorm was slowly cooling, its surface drifting from an intense shade of red to a more normal, greyish color. Everything around had been heated, and not everything was able to disperse the heat.

One of those things was Serana's ice cage, which was cracking and thawing. There was water flowing down in front of her. _Finally…_ She pushed with her arms and legs as strong as she could. She felt her boot sink slightly into the frost. Her hands managed to open a slim opening in the barrier. She pushed another time, this once synchronizing the movements. A long fissure opened with a snap and she managed to fit her hands into it and push to the sides. Her wounded fingers and her broken, bloody nails hurt as she pressed, but she endured. She had endured far worse. She ripped the fissure open and some air came inside. She head-butted the frost, cracking it and finally breaking the cage apart.

As it collapsed to the ground, the ice immediately started melting. The power keeping its temperature low enough to prevent thawing had ceased to work. She didn't give it too much attention and rolled on the side to get out of the pool of water that was rapidly forming on the ground. Outside the ice prison, the heat was unbearable. The air was hot and completely dry. The cloth parts of the armor, drenched in water, were steaming almost imperceivably. The water beneath her was dyed red when she rose her head. She touched her forehead with her hand and then brought it to in front of her eyes. It was bloodied. Her eyebrow was bleeding. She didn't care. Putting a fist on the ground, she rose to her knees and raised her head. She looked around, searching for the figure.

The mystery man was a few paces away from her, resting on his back and leaning on the shoulder opposite to the bitten side of his neck. He had a hand close to his mouth, but she couldn't guess why. The shoulder that wasn't on the ground rose and lowered in correspondence to his deep, hoarse breaths. He moved his hand away from his face and let it fall on the ground limply. After the clang on the armor hitting the ground, she heard the sound of glass breaking and saw small splinters scattering everywhere. _A tiny bottle. He drank a potion, probably._ The arms too began rising and dropping at the rhythm of his breathing. He turned his face to the ceiling and whispered something indistinct.

Serana rose to her feet and ran over to him, crouching and holding his head with her hand. The light came from a lower point of the room, and so his face wasn't visible even then, despite her being so close to him. 'You're fine,' she said, shifting the hood just enough to glimpse at the wound on his neck. It was a bad injury. The vampire had ripped his teeth out of him and left gaping slashed, but he looked all right. Whatever he had drank had probably put the blood loss under check. The wound almost distracted her from the figure's skin. It was ashen, colorless. She looked at the black shadow hiding his face. 'You're alive.'

'I suppose…' he muttered. He moved his hand over to his head and moved hers away, firmly but still gently. 'Listen,' he said, in between difficult breaths, 'I won't die. But, if it happens, get out of this place and go North. You'll find a road. Go East, and you'll find a settlement. Once there, ask for Fort Dawnguard and go there. Tell them Azrael has send you, and they'll understand. They'll bring you to your father. Clear?'

'Yes, but… Who will I find—'

'No questions now…' he said. 'If you want to help me, carry me outside and let me rest. I'll bring you to your father. Or just stab me and end me.' A growl of pain escaped his throat and his whole body lost its tension. ' _Laat los Pruzaan._ '

He probably closed his eyes, but she couldn't tell. He took a last, deep breath before his body lost every sing of life.


	8. Chapter VII: Shadows in the Moonlight

Chapter VII: _Shadows in the Moonlight_

* * *

The wind was blowing strongly. She felt it slashing at her skin while small splinters of ice hit her. The gusts came from her left, and they were colder than she remembered anything to be. It had to be the North, the way they came. The light of the moons was faint ad diffused, coming from a generic point in front of her. She strongly suspected that, without her empowered vision in the dark, she wouldn't have seen anything. The bank of clouds was thick and covered the whole sky, in every direction. The black of the firmament merged with the leaden color of the peaks, which stood out because of the white snow coating their tops. The trees shook, the gales howled and the pine-needles rustled above and around her.

It was snowing. A few large flakes slowly fell down and lay on the ground, fitting the weave of crystalline frozen water that coated the terrain like a white mantle. Some flakes fell on her hair, blocking and forming a translucid crown on her head. The warmth of a mortal body melts away the snow, but her cool flesh didn't. The snow fell on her head, her face and her armor, barely wetting the parts made of cloth. Some were simply carried further and whistled beside her leaving only a trail of cold air behind.

She looked down. Nowhere in particular. The only things she saw were her own crossed legs, a bundle of frozen snow flowers and her own footprints, which she had left when sitting. Her armor was incredibly well-preserved, for an object that had been closed away for centuries. Or millennia? She still didn't now. _I'll ask him when he wakes._ Nevertheless, it was quite remarkable. Either the monolith was sealed with very powerful magic, or there was some sort of stasis applied to the stone itself. In all those years, some humid air was bound to enter from the seeps and crack in the stony prison, air that would corrode the metal. Nothing of the sort had happened. The bundle of snow flowers was dry and grey, grown in a couple of days without wind but killed off by the freezing gale that was blowing in that very moment. Some shades of red were still visible in the shriveled petals. Her footprints were light and relatively small, even if the boots made the small size of her feet slightly larger. The marks were already fading away, made unclear by the wind. Soon, they'd disappear completely as more snow filled them and the breeze leveled the ground.

Her gaze went from her prints, to her boots and legs and then her attention came back to her body. She raised her gaze, noticing that snowflakes were hitting her face and falling on her lap. The sky beyond the small rise in the terrain that obstructed the view in the wind's opposite direction was completely black and even. She remembered those moments, where the clouds were so dense and thick that everything disappeared. The first thing someone would do was walk over and see what was beyond the elevation, but not her. Before sorting out what was happening outside her, she needed to cope with everything going on inside her. She had forgotten for how long she had sat there, completely still, with thoughts racing through her mind.

Unsurprisingly, most of them revolved around the mystery man.

She had laid him down at the side of the pine-tree standing in front of her, the only thing breaking the monotonous color pattern of whites and greys which dominated the landscape. The green of the needles, although broken by the white snow, and the dark brown of the bark brought some change to her surroundings. The mystery man lay precisely on the snowless shadow under the tree, his longsword resting just by his side, where she had carefully put it. Thankfully, there was a small boulder just beside the pine-tree that extended the area not touched by the white. The man's head was reclined against the trunk, his shoulders suspended just above the ground. He lied there, motionless and quiet, his face still hidden under the dark shadow of the cowl and his armored hands open just beyond the waistline.

A hundred thousands thoughts rushed through her head. _Now that he's unconscious, I should take a look at what he looks like. There something strange about him and maybe that would tell me something._ Other voices spoke. _He saved me and I owe him some loyalty._ But someone else seemed to disagree, and the mental chatter kept going. I _know nothing about him and he isn't willing to give up anything about who he is or what he wants. He's just a danger. I should dispatch of him as soon as I can._ Her dagger was attached to her belt, her hand was entwined with the other one's fingers around her knees. He was sleeping, unconscious. She could almost envision it, her grabbing the blade and stabbing him into the throat. _It would be so easy…_ But someone else seemed to halt her. _If I wanted to, I should have done it in the chamber, where he gave me the option. Why do it now?_ Despite her trying, her mind didn't stop.

None of those sounds was her own voice. She was the observer, it was up to her to sort all of those out and find a solution. It was a constant chaos, almost like a court meeting, but where there was no etiquette and no limitations. A village gathering was probably more similar, but she had never witnessed one. Some were the voices of people she knew, some of what she liked to recognize as alternative selves that had never come to light and some other mute but powerful impulses that came from somewhere deeper, more savage. It was unrelenting. Those moments absorbed so much of her mental energies that she felt completely paralyzed. She closed her eyes, trying to shut down her mind along with her sight and reset the intense discussion in her head. The dark fell softly and gently before her, enveloping the white of the snow, the grey of the rock and the green of the pine-tree. A barely shimmering black veiled the world, for as long as he liked.

Her eyelids rose. The images slowly crawled their way back into her vision, becoming clearer and clearer with every passing moment. There was a little more order in her mind. The questions hadn't gone away, but the answers had. She looked at the mystery man from under her eyebrows, shifting a wet lock of black hair that had fallen on her cheek. She could hear his deep breaths every time his chest rose or lowered; it sounded like the breathing of a sleeping person and it was clearly uncontrolled. He was still out, and the utter motionlessness of the body proved it. His head had fallen over to the side a tiny bit since she had put him down, in the opposite direction of the wound. That wasn't a thing a normal man, or even elf, would be able to do. React unconsciously to the pain and shift mechanically to avoid the pain.

She shook her head, half in disbelief and half in irony. _He's a mystery made up of a weave of enigmas._ She focused and tried to remember everything that had accidentally slipped him during their conversation, but there wasn't much to go on. Now, at least, she knew his name. _Azrael_. Whether that was his true name or not, that remained to be seen, but if he had told her to refer to him as such then someone had to know him by that name. That was something. It might have helped her in the future, in some way currently unknown to her. She could imagine that man being known everywhere throughout the land or not even having being seen by the vast majority of its inhabitants. Maybe both. It could have been possible. He hadn't died, that was sure enough by then, and she was a little calmer. The thought of going somewhere on her own, in a world potentially different from the one she'd left and meeting people while trying to hide her identity and not knowing anything about current events or other small talk subjects was a hard prospect. Plus, she didn't know the people the mystery man had ordered her to visit. A group named Dawnguard didn't sound like someone friendly to the vampires, unless it was an undead with a remarkable sense of humor. _I would have gone there,_ she realized. _I trust him this much._

And that wasn't good. _Years spent at my father's court, and I still know close to nothing._ For one, her mother had always been there to give her some advice, and second she always knew what others wanted from her. Her strength had always been her ability to deduce other people's motives thanks to her understanding of them supported by some records of what they did in a day. She had never been a gut person. If she had in the past, she didn't remember. She trusted other people and objective, reliable facts. Not herself, not her intuition. Those had led her to disappointment many times. But without a good degree of insight, she couldn't understand anything about the man that had saved her, who was actively shielding away his motives and his intentions to her. _Not excessively subtly, too._ He had never said it out loud, but he didn't try to hide his need, or wish, for secrecy. He was doing his own thing. He was playing his own game.

There was once a man at her father's court who had given her a piece of advice she never intended to forget, and that came to her mind when she thought once more about the things he knew of the mystery man. Inconsequential things, to her. 'Any amount of knowledge you possess, however meager, is immense if given its right frame and context', the man had said. He was an alchemist, and he was a genius. He had the ability to predict events way before they happened, but not thanks to any magical tricks, and that was the thing he was most precious for to anyone. He had found a field of expertise, alchemy, and lived his days doing what he loved while also sharing his insights on the place where they lived. Serana had never in her life met someone more purely intellectual than him, but he was a good man. He hated ignorant people, didn't back off when faced with a challenge and he easily antagonized everyone he considered inferior, but it was easy to get along with him. The only thing needed was a sound and sincere will to learn something new, every day. She wanted to and he had taught her that. Any amount of knowledge you possess, however meager, is immense if given its right frame and context.

The few things she knew about her savior, about Azrael, had no frame and no context whatsoever. There were things about him, like his accent, that with the necessary background would have proven invaluable. But she didn't know anything. She knew he spoke the Dragon Tongue, but how? Had things changed since she was in the world? What had happened? And how much time had passed. _A lot,_ she thought, but it wasn't enough. She needed precise information, and currently her only source of knowledge was the man himself. But knowledge is power, and he knew how to guard it. He knew that, in the very moment when she had enough, she'd have the upper hand. There were things about him that reminded her of the alchemist, back in the days. That reluctance to give, that kind of intellectual avarice that allowed both of them to have an advantage. Their knowledge had a price. _And anything with a price can be stolen_ , she said to herself. _Without him I'll never survive, but he doesn't trust me. And neither will I trust him._

She brought her hands to her forehead and drew away the hair falling over her face. When her mother had locked her away, she had recently fed. Her hair had grown a little before her body had returned to its utterly inert state. They reached the tailbone now and the locks were heavy. She had to pull them behind her ears, with a gesture that was firm and emphatic to the point of being theatrical. She stopped for a moment, catching herself in the act, but suppressed the thought. _Later_ , she said to herself. _There'll be plenty of time._

She bent forward and crawled onward. The wind had stopped blowing and the snow had stopped falling. Her hands and feet made very little noise in the snow, but there was little else to hide the sound. The pine-tree shook at times, under the weak gusts following the gale, and its needles rustled. She moved close, but she waited for one of those moments to approach his sword from the side of the rock where she had put it. _I could have grabbed it immediately. My mind wasn't clear when I went out of that cave, it seems._ She sat again with her legs crossed and kept her head down, casting a glance at the hollow visage of the mystery man. No movement. His eyes were still a bit higher than hers because of the way he leant against the trunk. His head was turned away from where she was sitting, and the breath seemed exactly like it sounded before. The calm, deep breath of someone unconscious.

With careful movements and without letting the mystery figure out of her sight for a single moment, she extended her arm and closed her fingers on the grip of the longsword. She raised it gently from the ground, wary or not touching the stone with the blade to avoid any sounds. The edges glimmered for a moment when they reflected the weak rays of moonlight, barely visible in the clouds. The weapon was surprisingly light in comparison to many other weapon's of the same length. She was unnaturally strong, but she could still judge weight by mortal standards. Her vampiric strength didn't come to her unless required, and in that moment it was dormant. She could tell the blade was light, thought certainly not light enough to be held with one hand as easily as the figure had made it look to be. He had seized it easily while keeping a spell in his other palm. _He must be strong,_ she thought, stealing a glance at him. No movements. Something flashed through her mind. _The dagger's by his side, I can't take it without him noticing. I'll leave it there, but if he wakes and I'm distracted, I could be dead._

She quieted her mind and went back to the sword. Even in the dark, she could see everything without fail. The night vision of a pureblooded vampire is one of its most effective tools. The blade was long, straight and slender, with the length of a northern greatsword but not the width of one. Tilting the tip, she moved her head and looked at the cross-section. It was strange, with a curved dip on both sides. _A hollow ground,_ she remembered from her years of training. That wasn't something found often in Skyrim. The vast majority of the good blades had a diamond-shaped section. The concave central ridge was also of a darker color. The ridge of the blade was of a different material, a bony white that melded with the light grey of the sword's other parts so well that she hadn't noticed from a distance. The blade alone was quite incredible. It looked like a combination of the crafts of Skyrim and of somewhere foreign, and that weapon was the best of both worlds. Her hands slid down, towards the grip and guard. They were the things that had most attracted her attention, upon seeing the weapon. The crossguard was very slightly curved towards the tip of the sword, and that was a normal design, but its wasn't just two bars. It was molded with stunning perfection to resemble the wings of a Dragon. They were made of dark grey metal, with a reinforcement of a lighter color on the side facing the blade, where the hits were taken. It was the same material that hardened the edge of the blade. It had to be a very strong, and very sharp, material. The grip was even and cylindrical, covered in smooth and lucid black strap that was probably made from a very fine kind of leather, dyed black afterwards. The pommel, following the same theme of the crossguard, had the shape of a Dragon's head with its maws closed. The detail was incredible. _I'd expect it on a sword built for show, not one that's brought in a fight._ She looked for a moment at the mystery man. _Whoever crafted you this was skilled. If it was meant for you, that_ _is,_ she told the mystery man in her could easily picture him killing for a weapon of that kind, but that was something that advised her against it. She didn't trust her intuition, but she still felt a strange hunch, deep down. _This blade is too much alike its wielder to have been forged for someone else._

With the utmost care, she raised the weapon and put it back where it was. Everything had to be exactly the same as she had left it. _If I'm not trusting him, I shouldn't assume he's kept his eyes closed this whole time._ Just in case, everything needed to be where she had left it. She put down first the tip and then, gently, lay the handle on the ground. On the man's opposite side. _You're not grabbing it quickly, this way,_ she told him in her mind. During the inspection, she hadn't made any noise that she could perceive. It was important to know, because she wanted to step up her search significantly. _In my time, they said killers always carry their orders on themselves. Let's see if it's true for you, too._

There were pockets and pouches attached to his belt and also the bandoliers on his chest. They were all, without any exception, made of opaque black leather. It was probably dyed, the same way the strap around the sword's grip was. The color was slightly less dark and more rough, a sign that it had received less treatment. _Logical,_ she thought with a grin, _the strap on the handle needs to never slip. These can._ They were all closed with a black twine, knotted in a very strange way. It wasn't a tie she had seen used before, not by the knights of her time nor by the members of her father's court. _Maybe it's popular now, although it wouldn't surprise me if he had invented it by himself._ She hadn't saw him untie any of them, and she had no idea as to how she could. Slowly and watchfully, she reached for one of the pouches with one hand and raised the knot. She couldn't figure out a way to undo it or even loosen it. _Damn… Something else…_

There was indeed. Her eyes fell on the Elder Scroll, fastened to the back portion of his belt. Those ties were easier, she recognized them. She slipped two fingers of both hands near them and loosed them enough just enough for the Scroll to fall down a little bit. She took the roller and pulled gently towards her, enough for the roll of paper to slide off the man's belt but far enough from the armor to avoid sounds and bumps. _My mother gave it to me and it shall remain with me._ Pulling her strap across her shoulders so that the parts holding the scroll were all on her chest, she took the roll and positioned it where it was supposed to stay, on the right hangers and the right knots. _I'm sorry, but this…_ her own thoughts trailed off. She had caught herself mocking and underestimating the mystery man. It was a normal thing for her, but in that moment she couldn't allow it to happen. Letting the mind work during a social contact was fine, but that might have been a matter of life and death. She had stolen something from him. She had to be ready to confront him, not mock him.

She looked for other things. There was a larger, rectangular pouch that seemed to contain something. By the shape, it was presumably a book. That one wasn't knotted. The leather was strained, and whatever was inside was stuck there. It wouldn't fall off even if it was turned upside down, which was reason enough for why it wasn't tied. _Although I suspect he would have anyway, so whatever that is it must be something he'd be okay losing._ She extended a hand, but then she heard a sound. A very soft sound.

The figure turned his head towards her.

'I…' she whispered, withdrawing her hands as quickly as she could. She could almost see him grab the dagger and hack both her hands off at the height of the wrist. She almost heard the screech of the short blade being pulled from its sheath and its hiss and it descended on her. She felt paralyzed, and nothing could save her from that. There wasn't any vampiric speed to save her, when her mind didn't answer. Likewise, no power on Nirn could have given her hands back to her, vampire or not. The screech didn't come though, and neither did the hiss. She had imagined them. She noticed that she had moved her eyes away from him, and she brought them back again at once.

The figure was still, completely immobile. _Are you telling me he just moved unconsciously?_ she thought, leaning right to get a better view of his invisible face. Not that she would have seen anything, but in the unlikely case that he was conscious and had his eyes open, she could have made eye contact and perhaps incite him to say something. _As if he'd react…_ she said to herself, sighing softly. The more she spent in the world again, the more her usual skeptical, doubting side began to emerge again. There were many ways to deal with reality and her way was distrust. The more reality she was exposed to, the more the mistrust grew and took control of her decisions. It had saved her so many times that she couldn't count, and it was a useful ally to have. Right now, her doubting side was questioning the nature of the man's, Azrael's, sudden and unexplainable movement. He hadn't done anything afterwards, he still lay there motionless, but she knew him for a smart and cunning one. Just as quickly as he had thought of a plan to dispatch of the Draugrs and then of the vampires, it was just as likely that he had moved that way and then return silent, feigning helplessness. He probably knew she'd be too cautious to awake him. But if his movements could lie, his breath couldn't. It was still slow and deep, as if he was sleeping.

She bent her head on the opposite side, cocked her eyebrows suspiciously and extended her hand towards the book. There seemed to be nothing to fear, for the time being. She seized the tome on both sides with her fingers and drew up. The strained leather posed some resistance, but it was mostly due to the direction. She couldn't pull it exactly upwards because the man's back was there and she was careful not to touch him with anything. The tome did come loose after two more pulls, after which she curved it horizontally and slipped it in the tiny space between the mystery man's belt and the tree. With wary motions she backed away, putting one step after another with maximum caution and getting back to her previous place. The snow had covered her older prints, the ones she made laying him under the tree, and the ones she was leaving now could have easily been mistaken for those original ones. It all worked, in pure theory.

She reached the spot where she had previously sat, before going to explore the mystery man's property. She wasn't too content with her findings, she had hoped better, but any knowledge was good knowledge. _And I might still have some time, after I skim through this book_. He was in the exact same position he had ended up in when moving his head. She looked in the sky, where the wind had blown away some of the clouds. In the holes, shafts of moonlight pierced the haze and illumined the ground. She didn't need any light, but what she saw was very beautiful. She had quickly been reminded of how cruel the world can be, and now she remembered how delightful it can, at other times, be. She gave a quiet, airless sigh and looked at the book. On Slaying Vampire, the tile read. _Well, well… He might have wanted to hide that away from me, but…_

'Are you done scouring about?'

The first thing she felt, or rather heard, was the book tumbling on her legs and then falling into the snow. She didn't remember letting go of it, but it was out of her hands and so it must had. It was as if she had failed to experience a short moment of time. For a brief laps of time her senses, every one of them, had completely ceased to work because of the fear that had crept up her whole body and froze it solid. Her gaze was locked against the terrain, she felt as if her neck had suddenly turned into stone and refused to move. Categorically.

There was a sound of something scratching the ground, given the strident nature of the noise it was safe it assume that it was the man's armor producing it. A raspy growl came too. 'Are you concerned with the title?' asked the figure, in between the snarl and a heavy breath. 'I slew some, did I not?'

She managed to raise her gaze and look at the black nothingness framed by the edges of his hood. She hadn't understood the exact subtext of his sentence. She rolled out the idea of it being a justification, but she was also hesitant to consider it being a casual, almost playful comment. _If you're not clear with me, I will_. She straightened her head. 'You did,' she said, 'not before trapping me into a cage of indestructible ice.'

Her expectation of an immediate reaction such as a cold or a sharp reply were immediately proven wrong by the silent that fell around them. Not even the wind blew. A silence of that kind wouldn't have been heard anywhere outside of a cemetery. She looked more intensely as him, but it was quite discouraging. He wasn't flinching, and even if he was she wouldn't have seen it. She wasn't even sure she had his eyes open, but she suspected he had. 'Am I supposed,' he asked, his tone marked by a faint note of droll exasperation, 'to explain myself?'

'You are,' she said, and it came out slightly harder than she would have liked. 'One moment I fought by your side and the next you seal me away from the fight. I didn't know who those vampires were and they were a threat to me as much as they were to you. So why?'

Again, he let a little moment pass before he started talking. It gave her some time to think over the things she said and it what way she might have said those better. Or if it had been wise to tell it in the first place. She couldn't tell if he did it on purpose or not, but she knew that precise question was the one that she'd constantly ask when trying to understand him.

'You fought the Draugr,' he said, after a deep breath, 'and you were beaten. I wouldn't have risked both our lives just to give you the temporary satisfaction to fight. Furthermore, to fight your own kin. It seemed to me those vampires weren't a threat to you. They'd have done the same thing I intent to do.'

'So I was nothing more to you than a incapable and untrustworthy fighter?'

A grim laughter came from the man. From Azrael, that was his name. Or whatever it was. The laughter that was already his, and so eerily familiar to her. 'Why does everybody,' he whispered, more to himself than her, 'reframe everything said to them in the worst way imaginable? I suppose we give voice to our inner doubts thanks to the voices of others, don't we?' He stopped and exhaled harshly. 'No,' he said, giving that fearsome monosyllable an incommensurable meaning. 'I see much more in you than an incapable, untrustworthy fighter. I trapped you because that's one of the many sides you have. I didn't trust you, I won't deny it. You don't trust me either I presume, since you were looking around my possessions.'

Two trains of thought began to roll around her head independently. She was trying to find a suitable response to his sentence, which carried a clear taunt in its subtext, and simultaneously attempting to decipher his tone. She was getting gradually better at reading the hidden cues and signs in his voice, and she could guess that his last phrase wasn't at all hostile. Quite the opposite, it was both approving and somewhat ironic. _There seem to be a lot of trust issues surrounding him. That would put him almost on my same page,_ she thought, suppressing a grin. When around people, she smiled a lot. Perhaps not beaming, radiant smiles, but she grinned and sometimes leered quite often, but she felt like she couldn't afford to do it. Repressing the smirks creeping into the shape of her lips was difficult and required some concentration, but it was the only way to protect herself. The man, for the moment, had seemed to have lowered his guard a little bit and wouldn't have pried on her every reaction, but she couldn't be so sure. Her experience told her to control herself, and even he himself had referenced it being a wise thing. _We're still enemies, that was a euphemistic way of admitting it_.

While she still rearranged her thoughts, she brought together all the knowledge she had on that enigmatic, cold and calculating killer. There seemed to be different things about him that mixed to create a complicated and, possibly, troubled individual. He mixed and acute and alert observation of the environment with an intense absorption into his own mind. An artificial trust, derived by the vast amount of knowledge he seemed to possess, clashed with his general mistrust of everything around him. His ability to cut right through lies and half truths oddly blended with his aloof and unproductive style of communication. A sudden realization struck her. _He's used to being alone, isn't he? Someone this cool must have steely restraint, and he uses with others the same means of communications he uses with himself._ She didn't really trust that insight on its own, but it was a good starting point for later observations. If that was true, it was a definite weak spot. In court, one of the first lessons she had to learn was that the only way to get others to agree with you was to speak using their symbols and their vocabulary, not forcing them to adopt your perspective. Azrael not only didn't do it, but she doubted he even could if he tried.

She couldn't even consider trying to manipulate him. Her powers were alive and pulsing now that she had fed, but she doubted they'd have worked successfully on him. For the moment, conventional means were her best bet. _Conversation, for instance_. 'Well, I suppose I had my doubts,' she said, this time letting her grin take its shape on her lips. 'I was most curious about your blade. It seems masterfully crafted and designed, so I took a look. By the way, who forged it?'

'I did,' he replied, coolly. Immediately after saying it, he brought his hands closer to his sides and pressed them flat on the ground to rise straighter, as if to give her time to come back from the startle. Her surprise and his movement were completely unrelated of course, but it almost felt that way. He pushed and rose to a sitting position, exhaling heavily, and laid his back on the truck in a way that was more comfortable. In the meantime she thought of something. She had planned the discussion to continue following the history of whomever had crafted the longsword, but unfortunately the world seemed to begin and end in the mystery man, for all she knew.

Furthermore, there hadn't even been a trace of pride or satisfaction in his tone. _I'd certainly feel blissful if I could tell someone I'd created something like that,_ she thought, stealing a glance at the longsword. Its Dragon head-shaped pommel almost seemed to stare at her for a moment. She rose her gaze, bringing it once again to the empty void covering Azrael's face. 'Did you?' she asked, without having to feign one bit of surprise. 'It is very well made. I know a little bit of sword designing from my education, back when I was a girl, and I trained with bladed weapons for a long time. That's where all my knowledge comes from.'

'Nevertheless, you've seen what I can do with it. With your knowhow, you understand how. The blade is fourty-three inches long and the grip eleven, which makes it valid for both one and two hands on top of giving me a range and swiftness advantage on almost anyone.'

She nodded, gazing away from him. She was a bit lost in thought, busy creating a list of the things she wanted to ask. He seemed up for some questions back and forth, but there was no telling how long his disposition would last. Breaking the boundaries one time might have signaled the end of the conversation altogether, so she had to play it careful and smart. _His race's a problem, but the most logically connected seems to be the why he didn't kill the bald man back in the cave._ By keeping the flow, she hoped he'd have tolerated the exchange of information. _I still refuse to think I'm dealing with a volatile and unstable person. Maybe the opposite is true. He uses pure rationality and assumes that always works._ She suppressed a gloomy grin. _It works, but not always._

'By the way,' she said, bringing her eyes in the general trajectory of his gaze, 'I noticed something during the fight. When you attacked the bald man, you missed him.' She waited for confirmation, and although he didn't give any signs that were commonly recognized as thus, she interpreted his silence as validation enough. 'I was under the impression that you actually aimed to miss. Well, more precisely, you thought ahead that his parry would throw your strike off target. Almost as if you didn't want to kill him on the spot.'

'You're right,' he said, moving his head in a way that might resemble a nod. He couldn't do more, with the wound he had on the throat. 'My intention was to wound him, kill his friend and then question him. The miscalculation was, as I think you'll have picked up, the other one's aggression.'

'I did notice. Generally, the further away from the blood patron the more unpredictable a vampire becomes when his or her life is on the line.' She didn't feel too sure about sharing that concept, but considering he was a man, and a man so logical at that, she'd probably soften him more by connecting over more impersonal matters, like problem-solving and general knowledge. Thus far, it seemed to work. While she fed him the superficial side of the discussion, she looked for more hidden cues. To his credit, she had to admit that they were remarkably hard to pick up.

Nevertheless, he did seem interested. 'And how far away were they from the blood patron?'

She shook her head, looking at the sky and thinking for a moment. 'I can tell you that the bald one was a quarter-breed, of that I'm absolutely positive. I don't know about the others. Maybe three, four infections away. In my time, there were some with ten infections of distance from the original blood patron.'

'Speaking of your time, how long were you sealed away?

 _He's helping me, at least…_ she thought, once again eating right back her smile. Although she suspected he couldn't see much of her in that darkness, she never felt sure. _I can totally see him having drank a potion to augment his sight in the darkness along with the healing mixture he probably ingested._ Aside from her precautions, she was glad that he had moved on with the subject. Not because the previous was a dangerous or uncomfortable one to go down, but because it hinted at the possibility that he'd actually contribute, instead of merely defending himself. _Man or Mer, mortal or immortal, we're all the same deep inside,_ she thought, as if to remind herself that he was still, at his core, a part of her world. A world that, despite the time passed, hadn't changed much apparently. It was still cold, snowy and sometimes windy. But if the sky, the stone and the dirt remain the same, the people rarely do. Ironically, Azrael's question was probably going to help her more than him.

'Good question. Hard to say.' She took some more time to think, but nothing was there to help her. She dragged her legs close to her chest and encircled them with her arms, dangling back and forth slowly and trying to find anything. 'I feel like it was a long time,' she said, and immediately after she came up with something that could have given her a reference point. 'Who's Skyrim's High King, as of now?'

A scornful scoff came from the mystery man, along with a sinister laughter. 'Next question?' he said in a subtly ironic tone.

That was clearly a jest. 'Why? What's the matter?'

'Diplomatically put, the position of High King is at the center of a debate. Realistically put, everything's a bloody mess.'

 _The passing of time does nothing. As he said, centuries don't make anyone smarter,_ she mused, rolling her eyes to the sky briefly. 'Wonderful, a war of succession,' she exhaled. 'Good to see the world didn't get so boring, however long I was away. Try and tell me the name of the contenders, perhaps I can trace them to some of my time.' She said it, but she doubted it very much.

'There's a side fighting for the independence of Skyrim, led by Ulfric Stormcloak, the Jarl of Eastmarch.' The first metal check was partially successful, since she didn't know anyone named Stormcloak, but the Jarl of Windhelm was a very well known position to her and it seemed logical he'd try to claim the throne. She kept listening. 'On the other side of the barricade stands Elisif the Fair, Jarl of Solitude and widow of the previous High King, Torygg. She's backed up by the Cyrodillic Empire.'

That didn't go as well as the previous one. Not only she was utterly unfamiliar with the names and titles, aside from Jarl of Solitude which she knew, but the mention of a Cyrodillic Empire completely clouded her thoughts. She tried to remember something, anything that could even allude to a state having its center in Cyrodill and expanding into Skyrim, but she didn't remember anything at all. _Maybe I'm missing something… No, there has never been any realm large enough to be called an Empire in Cyrodill in recent memory._ That simply didn't seem to make sense. 'A Cyrodillic Empire?' she asked, still quite startled. 'As in… A kingdom with its center in Cyrodill?'

'Yes,' rejoined the man, very coolly in spite of the awkwardness of the situation. He could have laughed at her and she wouldn't have had any reason to deny him the pleasure, but instead he retained his icy tone. He was probably deeply involved in his own calculations and thoughts, too. 'Currently, the Mede dynasty rules. It succeeded the Septim line, although I doubt you've heard of them.'

'No, I don't.' She bit her lower lip, almost grazing it with her fang. She lowered her gaze and tried to make some order of all of it, but in vain. Nothing of those things was known to her. She knew one thing of Cyrodill, and raised her head. 'The Ayleids? What of them?'

She felt his gaze in her eyes, piercing them. If he could see anything at all of her, it was the eyes. Two red light glowing weakly in the almost utter darkness. The moonlight was there, but it didn't help much. Azrael bent his head imperceptibly, letting a heavy and meaningful silence hang in the air for a few moments. The absence of words alone gave her the feeling that what she'd asked had no answer, or an answer she wouldn't like to hear. 'The Ayleids,' said the man, extremely slowly and utterly unemotionally, 'are extinct.'

'Oh…' was the only thing that managed to come out of her mouth. She wanted to say so many things, half questions and half impulsive expressions of her disbelief, that her mouth repeatedly opened and shut immediately after as she gaped rather blankly in the general direction of Azrael.

'And since you didn't know the Aelyds disappeared,' he continued, unperturbed, 'I should think you know nothing of the Dunmer.'

'The what now?'

'Of course.' The sardonic remark was followed by a low titter, which mirrored very well the feeling of amused exasperation that was starting to take over Serana's mind, cutting down her hopes one by one. That brief, shared laugh proved that they were both amused by the sheer absurdity of the situation. Azrael's voice cooled very quickly however. 'You know of the Chimer, then.'

'Yes,' she said, a bit loud. The chuckle had carried her away a little. 'Remarkable, there's something that I know. I know the Chimer, there was talk of them even at the court many times.' She stole a glance at his hooded face and something unclear made her grimace. 'You're going to tell me they've met some horrible end, aren't you? Like the Ayleids.'

'They became what I am.' The cryptic explanation woke Serana's attention, and Azrael obviously caught her questioning glance. 'I'm a Dunmer,' he clarified, 'more commonly known as Dark Elf. We're the descendants, in a manner of speaking, of the Chimer.' His voice ended on a strange note, and Serana withheld her desire to speak for a moment. He had something more to say. 'Since they're closely related, you should know that the Dwemer have completely disappeared.'

'You mean… they're all deal?'

'No. I mean they've disappeared. A story too long for now, though.'

Her eyes fell to the ground no lighter than her head into confused thoughts. She was confused and disoriented. She had difficulties reading through and following one single thread of her thoughts, since there seemed to be a chaos with multiple voice going on in her head. She heard some of them accusing Azrael of having been cruel beyond measure to mention the Dwemer too. That last addition in particular had surprised her, both because she hadn't asked for it and because she had no way of suspecting it. It had left her at odds with herself, while she unraveled the impossibly complex weave of information, small cues and hints gathered from his words. _I know he's a… Dunmer, Dark Elf, whatever… Not that it helps, either way._ He was related to the Chimer, so it was possible that he came from Morrowind. If anything, he must had some kind of roots there, whether cultural, religious or family-related. But traditions change, and something like a whole race changing its name was enough to shake the roots of any culture, however strong it might be. _And besides, he doesn't strike me as someone that sticks to traditions. It could be just me, but I don't think so._

What he told her was incredibly relevant on a historical level as well. Cyrodill being the seat of an Empire meant a few things. She could imagine the human races having conquered a large portion of Tamriel at some point in the past, since taking and holding that central position was a difficult feat. Surely, many more relevant things had happened, and only a handful, the ones immediately following her locking away, shared the context she knew. 'In which year are we?' she asked, sighing deeply. She felt as if the ground could swallow her as a result of the answer she got.

'Fourth Era, year two hundred and two.' He probably expected her to react strongly to such in information, which was probably why he hurried his question. 'Do you know how long you were sealed away now?'

She laughed, and it was her turn to do so mirthlessly and gloomily. 'If only I knew how many years the other Eras lasted, than maybe yes.' It was at least, at the very least, more than two hundred years. But it was a lot more. 'And before you say it, no, I don't want to know how long they lasted,' she cleared out. It came out naturally, exposing her suspect that unlike her, Azrael was someone to whom there's not a truth that's worth fearing. She wasn't like that. His way of speaking and saying things straight and to the point hinted at it, while her softer style mirrored remarkably well her preference for a beautiful lie than a cruel truth. Or at least that's what she always told herself. Sometimes she had the feel of it being the complete opposite. _And anyhow, this isn't the moment. If I can't cope with what happens outside of me I don't even want to think to what might happen inside me._

Unexpectedly, it was Azrael's deep and vibrant laughter that brought her back to the present world, to the snow drenching the leather laces of her boots and to the Moons casting their weak light down from the sky. 'I suppose that's quite enough for one night,' he said, his chortle wearing off and his tone returning to its usual note.

'Definitely,' she concurred, a lot more emphatically than he had been. _I'm reacting strongly_ , she realized. She felt extremely tense, and was looking for what exactly was making her tense. Which in turn made her become even more anxious. She felt like she did this too often. She felt nervous and then tried to figure out what was rendering her such. _They have said that I sometimes look a bit fidgety and nervous._ This time, she let the grinning smile surface on her lips. _But they don't know the half of it._ Her jaws were tensed. At once her mind identified part of her anxiety's reason the fear of leaving the conversation there. 'I want to talk, I do,' she thus clarified, 'just not about this. You can ask me anything, if you like.'

'Do you need some time alone?'

 _Are know… Toying with me or what?_ That looked like a catch. Something to trip her into saying or doing something she didn't want. She didn't need any time alone, and as a matter of fact she didn't want it either. 'No. Why do you ask? And aren't you afraid I'll just run away?'

'And where would you go? Enlighten me.' His voice dripped sarcasm. Everything from the tone, which was slightly different from his icy one, to the choice of words, was meant to expose the nonsensical side of the situation. She realized only then that even his brief moments of apparent hilarity had something that could chill you right to the bone. That joke, or the idea behind it, was able to make something funny almost as much as it was able to seize one's idea or action and annihilate it. He hadn't done that now. 'You've got no idea of where, and when, we are. Furthermore, you had the chance to kill me not too long ago. Thus far, you've done everything to present yourself as a rational, reliable person.' After his arguments had been laid out, he made his final point. 'No, I wouldn't see you running away from me.'

She furrowed her eyebrows. 'You're a head person, aren't you?'

'You too,' he swiftly, but unhurriedly, redirected. His tone was unreadable.

That little attempt at making him talk about himself hadn't worked too well. It looked and sounded very innocent, merely a natural continuation of his previous sentences, but she had hoped for more. He hadn't taken the chance to retort or say something defensive, which was a something. _Of course he didn't_ , she thought, letting some air ran down into her lungs. It was useless, but relaxing. _He's benefitting as much as I am from letting this flow. We're both giving away information that isn't dangerous in some other's hand and getting important knowledge in return._ He had of course gotten a head start by pointing a sharp blade at her throat, but she couldn't have imagined a different situation.

'How come you have an Elder Scroll with you?'

Once again, his voice brought her away from her mind and into reality. She tried to piece together something neither too revealing nor too elusive. 'Well, it's… complicated,' she said, taking some time. There was an escape route from the answer, and a rather easy one. 'There's a way for you to learn exactly why the Scroll is with me. And if you really intend on bringing me home, then you'll get more accurate explanation than I can give you right now.'

'Of the two things sealed away, which was more important?' His voice, though cold, had a clever and somewhat sly feel to it. She was getting better at deciphering the infinitesimal changes in his tone. 'You or the Scroll?'

She felt herself shake from her very core. _Why did you have to be like this?_ she said to him in her mind, but the humor was only there to push further away the strong feelings that had made her shiver. Out of context, it could have sounded like a rhetoric question or a mock-serious one. In that moment though, not only was it perfectly on point but it was also sharp and, to an extent, cruel. Azrael has said to her that she too was a head type, and Serana would have very much liked to believe that, but her heart always felt the strikes thrown at it. She had no idea if that question was meant to hurt, but her instinct said otherwise.

'Do you know?' she asked, smiling sadly. 'If you do, tell me. I certainly don't.'

'Is your home the place across the sea that we mentioned earlier?'

That didn't quite come out of the blue, but it was a very quick change of subject. It clearly wasn't such a far-fetched one, because the Scroll went back to the people that had locked her away, her own mother, and her mother traced back to the castle, of which he still knew nothing about. She chose to tell whatever came to mind. It wasn't as if he wasn't going to discover anything on his own once there. 'Yes,' she said, breaking eye contact for a moment, 'Castle Volkihar.'

'Where is it?'

'It's on an island North-West of Solitude, quite far into the sea of the North Coast.' She caught herself mental checking if everything she had said was still true in the present day. Since there was a Jarl of Solitude, there were reasons enough to believe the city was still standing and doing so in the exact same place where it had in her time. 'The quickest way is through the mountains, but depending on the period of the year it might be safer and faster to go following the shoreline. There's usually a boat on the beach which can get us to the Castle.'

'What, and who, will we find?'

She cocked her eyebrows and smiled faintly, still somewhat mocking. 'Your guess is as good as mine. We'll find a very big castle, unless its in ruins after all these years. I wouldn't think so, though.' _If my father still has his hands on the place, he'd be killed before the very symbol of his status gets destroyed_ , she mused as she spoke. 'As to who, I don't know. I guess it depends on what went down after I was locked away. And, in turn depending on how that went, I'll be safe there.'

From the moment she closed her mouth, she could swear she felt the penetrating gaze Azrael cast at her. 'Give me some context,' he said.

'Well, let's just say my father, Harkon, and my mother, Valerica, had a bit of a falling out. As a consequence of that, I was shut off in that stone. I don't know what happened between them after.' And yet she still felt his penetrating gaze on her. It was making her a bit nervous. 'Don't worry,' she continued, searching for a way to satisfy his curiosity. 'I'm not in any danger or anything like that, and neither will you most likely. It would, however,' she admitted, 'be a bit more unpleasant if we run into my father, for both of us.'

'Any vampire isn't exactly pleasant to run into,' Azrael sighed deeply. 'I have to make the exception for you,' he said, leaving enough time between this sentence and the next to leave her waiting with slightly bated breath. 'You're the first that didn't jump to my throat as you saw me.'

'My father's court has many flaws and endless vices, but they're civilized people by many standards,' she rejoined, replying to him but also trying to escape the mixed feeling his previous statement had caused. She wanted to believe it was genuine, but she found herself doubting her motives using a thousand different reasons, options and perspectives. 'You'll meet them. They plot, scheme and talk exactly like the bald man we encountered earlier. Their courtesy is overwhelming and their good will not even remotely so, but they'll behave. From what I've seen, I've reasons to believe the old structure has endured in that castle.'

'Your grew up there.'

It wasn't a question, but a simple statement of fact. He had understood it. Many memories came to her mind, so many that for a brief moment she felt overcome and drawn out of the world and into her own memories. That wasn't the right moment to recollect moments and mistakes, joys and hurts. That place was part of her almost as much as she was part of it, if not more. There was no time to think over the rainbow-colored flowers of her mother's garden and of the murky corridors where she'd play alone, hidden from her parents and the court. 'Yes, I did.' In her first years, her father was rarely there. She stayed with her mother. He was always in the mainland, dealing with whatever matters his subjects brought to him. Afterwards, though, when they all retired on the island, things changed. _I was nearly fifty_. 'I spent most of my childhood and adolescence there, and my whole life afterwards. Only later on I began to spend longer periods away from home.'

'You said your father was a king,' he said, almost the very moment she finished her sentence. Despite the cool tone, there was an inquisitive, curious note to his words. 'I suppose that makes you a princess. At heart, if not in name.'

'Truthfully, I was never too comfortable with my position. I remember from an early age being weary with the demands of everyone, but at the same time worrying I might not be able to live up to everyone's requests. My position as princess only made me escape further away, somewhere there would be no once to put more obligations and expectations on me.' Throughout her life, she had almost never had the chance to say those things to anyone. Inside the court, she couldn't afford to let anyone know how she felt, with one exception. Outside, she felt the people she dealt with would take advantage of that knowledge faster than she could blink. Azrael appeared so distant from anyone else that she, paradoxically, felt safe telling those things to him. The risk that he'd use that information was real, but not as present as anyone she'd ever met. 'I never really felt secure. My whole life I've searched for something that could give me the safety I desired, but I never found it. And later, well…' She trailed off. He didn't know about her parents, but maybe it was high time he did. 'As I said, my mother and father hadn't the best relationship, especially going forward. I was thrown around between them, afraid of disappointing one by satisfying the other. I don't know if you can relate, maybe nothing like this has never happened to you…' she concluded hesitantly, realizing she had taken much and told things which were probably uninteresting to him.

'Quite the opposite.'

She raised her gaze on his hooded face. The sides of the cowl had shifted and weren't pointing in her exact direction, so it was safe to assume that he was looking away. If she had to guess, he was staring at the emptiness of the night right behind her. His words had sounded remarkably strange. Though impassive, they had felt softer. Though cool, they had felt calmer. And though hardened by his raspy, rough voice, they could have been defined strangely warm. That tone seemed eerily familiar, and that was because it was similar to the one she had heard immediately after he had put her to sleep, after she had fed. _This doesn't clarify your persona in any way_ , she thought, but even that felt somewhat distant. She was focused on hearing what came right after that simple, three-worded, lapidary preamble.

'A story too long for now, mine,' he continued, his voice deepening and its vibrations decreasing in frequency. 'Yet, it resembles yours in some ways. Many placed their expectations on me, and many of them I defied.' His tone was absent, but there was a lingering hardness in it. A hatred for those who had made that mistake, probably. 'I can concur that it's a difficult thing.'

There was something that vacillated for a long moment, as if floating in the air like a leave falling from a tree or a shaft of moonlight piercing the night and illumining them, casting deep shadows behind them. It hung there for quite a while. Serana's eyes were fixed on the blacker than night hollow of her redeemer's face, while he was looking absent at the horizon while probably contemplating the cerebral landscape of his own mind. For a short moment, she caught herself finding very few things she wouldn't have given the Daedra in exchange for the ability to read in his mind. If she had learned something, anything, about him, it had to be that there was a hidden Azrael that very few people knew. She could sense a strange intensity in him. _There's something about him I haven't quite been able to figure out,_ she realized. It was quite a feat, to transcend the understanding of a woman who, for her many years of life, had been understanding some of the cleverest and guiltiest people born on Tamriel. And yet, he was different. Harder to grasp. Every time she had thought she had made everything out, something would immediately make her think over it again. No matter how many times she tried, there was always something missing. Some people she'd define as mysterious weren't like him. They handed you the foreword to the book they were. Azrael gave you the whole book, but it was all written in an unknown language, from start to finish.

When he moved, a powerful spell seemed to snap and break simultaneously. He dragged his hands again to his sides and once again clenched them into a fist, the metal scratching itself and making a strange and chilling sound. He bent his legs, which were both laid limply on the ground, and pressed his back against the truck. Extending a hand to his right and grabbing the longsword and the bow, he rose standing with a deep and heavy breath. His shadow lengthened alongside him until he loomed over the ground, casting a very long shade. _Either the Chimer grew in height, or he's oddly tall for his kind,_ she thought. His figure was impending and he towered over her as he had done already inside the cavern. Aside from the heavy breathing, the wound on the throat didn't look to bother or hinder him in the slightest. _He's rather very resistant to pain or the potion he drank was immensely powerful. I wouldn't discard either, honestly._ He shook his boots to clean them of the snow that had fallen on them previously and cracked his neck, shifting his gaze to the horizon behind her.

'Fine,' he said. She locked every muscle up tight when she heard his tone. Every warmth was gone from it, and it was again his cold and emotionless voice. Only then she realized that she feared it, for some reason that was unknown to her. 'We've had out moment. Time to go, now.' It felt as if everything that had occurred, from when he woke up to ten seconds before, had never happened.

She swallowed everything, from her fear to her shame to her anger. 'We should be going North,' she pointed out, and she was quite sure he was looking at the wrong direction if not the opposite. It was somewhat heavy to be able to discuss only that meaningless, logistical detail, but it was everything she could think of. _And I care about my own skin, so I should be watchful that he doesn't mess anything up._ He had seen mistrustful people getting tricked in the easiest of ways and experts in seemingly everything stumbling on mundane matters. 'And, while I don't really tire easily walking, it would take us a lot of time on foot if the morphology of the area hasn't changed.'

Azrael folded his arms behind his back and gradually let his weight drag him backwards, against the tree trunk. 'We're not going by foot,' he said, keeping his gaze fixedly focused on the blackness behind her. 'My mare will take us to where you need to go.'

She felt two different reactions going off at once. She felt her heart sink and from there a caustic thought emerging. _A mare, really? And this Elf fancies himself the vampire expert. Everyone knows animals are afraid of vampires, or don't they anymore in this era?_ On the other hand, there was nothing in her that trusted the Elf's knowledge, if not his motives, and was inclined to discard the option that he hadn't considered that very simple and known fact. Still, the problem with him was that there was no guessing to the amount of things he had thought about and not yet uttered in word. 'You're aware animals get restless and hysterical in the presence of undead, right?' she asked, making sure. But then, what kind of animal would bare and accept the presence of a vampire? A trained beast maybe, of something so dark that it rivaled her in corruption of its very essence.

'Mine does tolerate undead,' he replied, with an unperturbed calm. He had seen the question coming, but hadn't cleared the missing link earlier. 'You'll be seeing soon. It'll be easier to show than to explain. I'm positive you might understand something more than I do about her, even.'

No choice but to wait. The situation was his to control, and that was the route it was taking. It felt like she had been following orders her entire life, and even the faint voice inside her telling her to stand up for herself was quickly put to silence without her making any effort. She was calmer with silently complying than questioning authority. She didn't overly like that about herself, but it was the way she was. Unhurriedly, she uncrossed her legs and raised standing. Bringing her head back, she shook it to make the snow fall from her hair. She was reminded again that they were a little longer. They had grown until utter undeath had claimed her and the dark energies were everything that kept her form from falling apart. She turned around with a low hum, which was as much instinctive as it was aimed to attract Azrael's attention, even for a moment. A solemn and somber oath constantly replicated in her head like a mantra. _You can do whatever you like, Elf, but you won't forget about me._ And then, the pledge. _I swear it._

In the past, everyone around her had the tendency to forget she existed or mattered. She could still see her mother, disappearing in the thin space between the rising panel of stone and the top of the monolith. _I will come back for you,_ she had said, and those words echoed back in her mind. A broken promise. With everything going on with Azrael and her father's servants, she hadn't had any time tot thick at all. _I will come back for you_. The hollow sound of the stone scratching the sides of her prison, which closed on her like the jaws of an animal, trapping her. _My mother didn't trust me,_ she realized with absolute certainty. _If she had, she'd left me free with the order to never again return to Castle Volkihar._ She reminded herself of the Elder Scroll. It's wasn't her life her mother was afraid for her, but for the Scroll. _I will come back for you._ Where was she now? Eras, eons later and she hadn't graced her with her presence. She didn't care what she had endured. She was her daughter, her only daughter, her sole child, and she had forgotten her. She had betrayed her. _Who can I trust, when my own mother betrays me? When my own father my have other uses for me, outside of the now obsolete one of continuing his lineage?_ Her head turned ever so slightly in Azrael's direction. Whether fate or doom, luck or chance, that was the first person she had encountered upon escaping her prison, upon starting what could be a different chapter of her life entirely. In a different world, in a different time. He was what he was, but he felt invaluably precious to her, because it was all she had. _You came when my mother didn't._ There was a bitterness and a rage in her thoughts that was almost afraid it might at some point explode without control. But it gave her the strength to carry on. She looked at the rims of Azrael's hood, barely moving in the dying breeze. _You will not forget about me. I swear it._

Repeating the promise once more after having sorted all the reasons why she felt that was had the ultimate effect of giving her a little tranquility back. She breathed in once again, feeling the chilly air in her lungs and feeling calmer still. The blood of the man she had fed on, even if somehow tainted and decayed, gave her body new life. The air she breathed was minimally touched, and she could feel the blood she had ingested renewing her body and flowing in her veins. The crueler and stronger instincts, the darkest and most violent ones, were asleep. They grunted in their slumber, reminding her that they'd come again. And while they slept, her more subtle powers were all at her fingers. Despite her choice of not using any magic, it was remarkably strange that her more subtle influence had sorted no effect whatsoever on Azrael. _Or maybe that brief moment when he opened up was the result, and when he realized it he thought I was trying to lure him with my powers._ It was unlikely, but she had to be careful. Vampires were often the talk of every place they got to even if no one knew their true nature. It was virtually impossible to ignore them. Their presence, when their crueler instincts are suppressed, is more magnetic than any mortal's on Mundus.

She shook her head and looked forward. The landscape when facing South wasn't overly different from the one when facing North. If anything, it was just barely less deserted and desolate and a little more hostile. High mountains and peaks covered by snow and split by gorges stood in the darkness of the night as opposed to the endless expanses of the other side. Only a few firs had the resilience to endure the frigid climate and the cold winds, channeled through the valleys. _It could be the breezes coming directly from the Sea of Ghosts,_ she thought. She roughly remembered where the crypt that had been her prison for so many years was, and there were only low hills and forests in between them and the cold ocean separating Skyrim from Atmora. Azrael hadn't been too clear about it, but their brief exchange led her to presume the mysterious, unconcerned-by-undead mare was due to come from there. Considering he hadn't done anything to call said steed, she could assume the animal either had magical capabilities or had been instructed to follow a certain route. Both were impressive and equally strange options. Furthermore, she was slightly troubled by the fact that it was a single horse. She understood only too well that it was the only option, but she'd rather stayed a little further away from Azrael that riding a horse together would allow. _I don't mind him near me, I just don't trust him._ She was actually beginning to doubt anything would appear at all, when a shrill and loud neigh tore the silent veil of the night.

Out of a corner in the mountainside, a fair distance away from them, a lone silhouette came galloping in the snow, raising clouds of pulverized sleet as it careered and leaving a shallow trail behind. Even from afar, she could see the beast's eyes glowing in the darkness of a fire like the one of burning coals. The creature's hide was black, but of a black that had bordered with dark brown instead of the sky's deep blue. The hair and the tail too were black, but those had shades of dark red. _What kind of monster is that?_ she wondered. Only in Coldharbour she had seen things as monstrous as this, but she didn't like to recall any of those events. _This doesn't seem like a creature born from Oblivion,_ she realized. As the mare got closer, she could take a closer look at the pieces of worked metal protecting certain parts of her body, like the neck, the abdomen and the back. The saddle was leathery and black too, with pouches and bags attached to it. There were larger bags in correspondence of the rear legs, as well. It was only after a moment that she realized that, despite those protections, the muzzle had no bite and no reigns. A wild beast, beyond taming, but maybe so faithful to its master that it didn't need any restrains or so intuitive to his commands that it didn't need any more directions than his words and possibly pulls on the hair. _An evil spawned somewhere the light doesn't even exist._ She took a last, focused look at the creature before turning her gaze back over to Azrael. What seemed like a normal warrior and rogue, well versed and experienced in his arts and crafts, was beginning to look like something far more sinister. _Not remotely as sinister as the people presumably waiting for me home, but still._ After all, there would be two reasons to concern oneself with vampires. You were either disgusted by them or had an interest in them, and for anybody to have an interest in vampires a certain familiarity with shady and sinister matters was almost a requirement.

The beast ran beside a tree, showering it with powdered snow. Serana had a chance to confront the trunk's size with the creature's, and what she saw managed to startle her for a moment. She could see that the steed was big, but it was bigger than she had calculated at first glance. _Its shoulder seems higher than my temple. It has to be. That's a fiendishly large horse._ That in turn convinced of a few things she had previously only deemed possible. The armor and the saddle bore clear marks of daedric forging, not overly different from the red scars on Azrael's armor. It wasn't such a jump to think of those plates as work of the same person who had crafted the cuirass, and there was a hunch worth listening to that suggested he was the smith. Just as he had crafted his sword, he had his armor and his mare's armor. _This is someone who does things alone,_ she thought, taking the mental note to be used for another time. Meanwhile, the creature had continued to dash through the snow at breakneck speed and was getting closer and closer to them.

Serana saw Azrael walking up to her and positioning right behind her. She felt his warm breath on her neck as he leaned in closer. 'This is Shadowmere,' he said, surpassing the racing horse's noise. He slowly withdrew and stepped to the side, putting a single pace between him and her. She didn't look back at him, for once because she was slightly nervous of having him so near and also because she was still intently looking at the steed as it nearly reached them. A twenty yards away from them, the creature began to shorten its leaps. That only increased the size of the snowy clouds raised by its advance. The moment the soft pounding of the hooves sounded closer than even and the beast was clearly slowing to a halt, a misty wall of congealed water half-hid the mare's figure. It reared up and neighed again, as it had done when emerging from the side of the mountain. The whine was very similar to the one of a normal stallion, but strangely shrill and penetrating. After that though, the animal landed on its hooves and snorted calmly.

The mare's red, flaring eyes shifted to Serana. She felt slightly taken off by the unsuspected intensity of its gaze, a stare that clearly wasn't human but was wild and fierce in ways she could hardly define. She held the beast's gaze resolutely, pleasantly surprised that what Azrael had said was indeed true. _This monster doesn't dislike nor fear the undead. It does sense them, the opposite would be impossible, but it doesn't react erratically to them._ The rhythmically widening nostrils of the mare blew some steam out, which led her to disregard the option of the animal being a reanimated carcass. There were no signs of reanimation and no signs of scars or wounds, from what she could see. There were portions of the cuirass large enough to hide the mark of an old wound, but those eyes alone were proof enough that the creature wasn't kept alive using normal necromancy. Death Hounds were probably the finest example of necromancy on animals, and their gazes weren't even remotely as aware and awake at the mare's.

Azrael stepped forward and the horse's eyes immediately moved on him and their light seemed to diminish and loose intensity. His gauntlet reached for the beast's neck, and Shadowmere seemed to move it closer to the armored hand. He touched her and caressed her before giving her a gentle pat. 'Good girl,' he whispered lowly. The horse, a female it turned out, snorted and moved her head away. Azrael moved towards the saddle, grabbing a lace with his left hand while putting against the black leather something he held in his right hand. That something looked disturbingly familiar to her.

 _How is…_ A wave of panic surged through her body so strongly that she felt paralyzed again for a few seconds. _How is the…_ She struggled even to finish the thought, while her mouth gaped helpless and unable to breathe out anything. She clenched her jaw, making her teeth scratch one another and bit her lower lip so strongly that she pierced her own skin. The substance that flowed out had the same, if a bit watered-down, taste of the burned corpse she'd drank from. The pain cleared her mind just the tiny bit necessary to put some order in her head. _How, in all the existing Daedra's names, does he have the Elder Scroll? It's here with me…_ she thought, but her musing trailed off as her left hand darted at her back and scratched only the armor's cape.

It wasn't just that he had the Scroll. He had taken it from her. _Taken it back,_ a voice in her head pointed out. _Stole it from me,_ another one rejoined. Her hand was still grasping the nothingness where once was the thing that she had so jealously guarded, because it was the very thing her life had been almost sacrificed for. And now he had taken it from her. Her mind wasn't yet calm enough to address the external issue, because much of her concentration was focused on how he had done it. _I took it from him before,_ she remembered, _and I fastened it on my back again, where it was before._ It was safe to assume that she had kept it for the entire duration of their discussion, but that left very few windows of opportunity for him. She had almost forgotten about it. The strange thing was that she hadn't felt anything. Not even a clue. _Although…_ she reasoned, _he did come up to me at one point. When he whispered in my ear._ The anger that crept up her body in the form of a strange vibration half-confirmed her suspicion. _He distracted me and stole it. Probably a rogue and a murderer, why not a thief too. A very good thief, at that._ That last note of irony allowed her to release some tension.

She clenched both hands into a fist, feeling her long and sharp nails grazing her own flesh. 'Why did you steal the Scroll away from me?' she asked, her tone a little harder than she'd intended.

Azrael was seemingly unperturbed. By the time she had made her mind up and spoke up, he had finished tying the roll to the saddle with four unused laces. 'I did tell you the Scroll stays with me, did I not?' he said, stepping back and examining his bonds.

The strange and disturbing feeling she sensed was of dealing with both an obstinate elderly man and a whining child at the same time. _Fine, fine, stealing it from me was faster and easier than getting it back from me fairly, but that doesn't change anything._ She didn't know what exactly to say to that. He did tell her and he had done what it was required it keep everything as he had decided it should be. She slowly brought her hands up to her hips. There could be a very rough retort coming, but she was ready for that. _I'm Serana of Clan Volkihar. Daughter of Coldharbour. I've endured far worse than this._ 'What do you want, Azrael? If you're so interested in me or what I have to say, it means there is something bigger going on, right? I could help you find out what that is, if you were so kind as to not steal from me or lie to me.'

'Yes, not everything's clear,' he said absently, as if lost in thought. 'One thing, in particular. As far as I can understand,' he continued, 'of the two things sealed away from this world, you and the Scroll, the latter is the more important. It sounds logical. You told me precisely that when I asked you.' His voice slowed down, his gaze rose towards the sky. 'And yet, I don't believe it.' At that, his head turned tersely in her direction. Despite his cool tone, she felt a penetrating and magnetic gaze wandering over her eyes. 'You were locked away so that someone couldn't find you. And to that someone, a highbred vampire was as important as an Elder Scroll. But that doesn't make any sense to me. There's something you haven't told me, is there?'

There was nothing she could do to hide the locking of her muscles and the stiffness that pervaded her whole body. The monstrous instinct of the vampire rose faintly in her thighs, and if it had been stronger it'd have made her step backwards and prepare for a jump. Her jaws snapped weakly, but if she hadn't held the movement off they'd have closed with enough strength to rip open the Elf's throat. She considered attacking him for a moment while he was turned away and vulnerable, but she didn't trust him. He probably had ways to repel her, and at that point there wouldn't be too many reasons to keep her alive in the first place. And anyhow, her head was lost in its own musings, as usual. _If he always nails logical leaps like this, I don't see a way of fooling him. He's always a step ahead, but it seems like he isn't. No wonder he's so cold._ She couldn't give up that knowledge now. Knowing that she was a Daughter of Coldharbour would give him more advantage than he already had. The risk of allowing him to understand the whole context was too high. _I have to give in for now. If anything, the Scroll is safe with him._ She remained silent.

Azrael put his hands on the mare's saddle and pulled himself up, breathing out quite heavily. The wound hadn't recovered fully yet. He stabilized on top of the mare's back and looked at her, even higher than he normally was. 'Until you tell me, the Scroll stays with me.' The frost in his tone signaled the end of the negotiation. Both the obstinate elder and the whining child had died, chilled by the ice. They were masks, sides of him that emerged from time to time. Only winter remained now. She felt his cold inside her. 'Come,' he said, his voice unperceivably softer. 'You'll be home in less than a week.' He held out a hand to her.

She took it and climbed on Shadowmere's back.

* * *

A/N: With this, the part concerning the freeing of Serana is over. There's a quick thing I wanted to address. I decided to follow the "First Era" interpretation, which places the whole sequence of events concerning the locking away of Serana in the First Era, before the Dragon War. However, you'll probably remember me saying in _The Winterborn's Flame_ that Serana remembered Alduin's Fall, which isn't the case if we follow this route. I don't know what was on with me, but either way, that's been changed. If you notice any more lore inconsistencies, let me know. Something can always slip.

Now, as I promised in the last chapter, onto Azrael for a moment. The moment up until _A Princess in the Wrong Castle_ where the POV change occurs was all given to have a glance at his "normal" attitudes and thought process. The closest thing I can think of that summarizes him is the concept of the "chess player". I didn't think some would come to hate him _this_ much _this_ quickly prior to this chapter, but it means I've done my job well. Too well, probably, because there's such as thing as exasperating some things. Maybe there's a lesson to be learned here, but for the moment – answering Guest's review on Chapter IV – everything's going according to plan and is intentional.


	9. Chapter VIII: Times Have Changed

Chapter VII: _Times Have Changed_

* * *

A soft, undefined whisper brought her to her senses. The haze in front of her glimmered before disappearing, pierced by bright rays. The light of the rising Sun struck a small sliver of her face, heating it up and causing painful vibes to irradiate. As soon as she was capable, she turned her head away, covering it from direct light. The black hood lowered on her forehead protected her against the contact with the skin, but she still felt her life lymph boil in her veins and scorch her undead flesh. She remembered those times when she'd been exposed for so much time that the heat inside her seemed to be ripping her from within. _It wasn't pleasant,_ she thought, making a definite understatement. She had felt miserable.

'Serana,' she heard someone call her again. Now that she'd heard it again, she realized that all the other whispers had been her name, too. They had been her name.

She raised her head ahead, avoiding the auburn light. 'Yes?' she asked, her eyes slowly starting to pinpoint with more precision the outlines of Azrael's dark armor. A little later, she became aware of the bumping of the mare underneath her. It took her a couple moments before she realized something concerning the frequency of the bouncing. _We're cantering, not galloping._ She shook her head, now that there seemed to be something important. She reminded herself that Azrael had called her at least three times and had patiently awaited her to awake on her own, so it couldn't have been something dangerous. 'Is something going on?'

'No, but there's something you should know.' He pulled Shadowmere's hair gently, and the creature slowed down to walking speed. Azrael always left a little silence in between his premises and the real conversation. 'We're stopping in Dragon Bridge. It's daybreak now, and I'll be handling personal matters with a contact of mine until Noon. Maybe later. My idea was to start riding again as soon as I'm done and keep riding in the night. Is that fine for you?'

'It's completely fine,' she said, giving him a strange gaze. He had turned backwards a little, but not nearly enough to see her or her eyes. 'Why did you even ask?'

'Because it makes no difference to me,' he said, ending a note that intuitively left her waiting for him to continue speaking. Serana had picked that up on their third day of travel. He ended all his phrases on a downward inflection in his voice, and if that wasn't there or wasn't very marked it meant he had more to say. She hadn't seen him talking to any other person other than her, not counting the three vampires he'd shortly after slew and burnt, but as far as she was concerned he never said things like 'There's something else'; sometimes a quick 'One more thing', just to link two sentences together. His voice said everything, and this time there was something more. 'Do you need to feed while we're in town?'

Asking questions that came out of the blue was a specialty of his. If not for the impossibly complex logical links he made, it was because there was nothing off limits. If he stonewalled against a limit, he usually broke it with some deadpan humor. 'Well…' she said, 'no, I don't, really. Pureblood vampires can hold off their thirst for longer than others.' That was the diplomatic answer, but she had learned to voice her confusion when it came up. If she didn't, he'd often ask what was up with her. 'Doesn't…' she began looking for the right words. 'Doesn't my bloodlust disturb you in any way?'

Immediately after having asked her about the riding on in the night, he had turned his head away, but now he brought it slightly in her direction again. 'No,' he said after a moment. She couldn't say if he had had to think about it or if that silence had meant nothing significant. 'Living women,' he said, turning his head away again, 'lose blood every month or so and you ingest some every week or so. It is simply the way it is.'

'It's not just the female vampires who—'

'I'm not an idiot,' he cut her off, firmly but not aggressively. 'But I was thinking of you when I said it.' His voice was sonorous enough to overpower hers in any circumstance. She had tried to intervene before, and she'd barely heard her own voice over his. On that term, it was an uneven fight. And yet again, she was under the impression he hadn't said everything. 'One last unpleasant thing you should know. If my calculations are correct, which I presume they are, over four thousand and a hundred years have passed since you were sealed away.'

She had seen that coming and had doubted it would have been reassuring, but like this? No, she had never imagined this. _It's only a quantity,_ she said to herself, trying to reduce the weight and find the meaninglessness of that amount. _It's only a quantity._ But as always, her thoughts worked against her better than they worked for her advantage. _It maybe very well be a quantity, but you know how large it is. It's over fifty times the life you've lived._ Obstinately, she fought fire with fire. _But fifty's only a number, too._ Ignorance was her shield of choice, she barred behind the hope that she didn't know what that much time could feel like. _Besides, I have been away all that time. Had I lived it all, that would be a different thing._ That was another defense, one that seemed to work a lot better than the previous one. It only felt logical that, if she hadn't lived it, it was as if it had never actually happened. Another barrier. Another angle to prove that ignorance was her only defense. _It's as if nothing ever happened._ She took a deep breath, but the life the burned man's blood had give her had completely flowed away from her. The chilly air floated in her lungs and then gently went out of her mouth pure and unused. The sensation didn't give her any comfort.

'I can almost hear your thoughts,' Azrael said, pulling Shadowmere's hair to the right and guiding her off the road. The mare obliged and moved off the road, on the grass bordering it. 'Muse over that number however long you like, but remember that as much as times have changed, the people haven't.'

It was undeniably eerie how that simple thing was able to comfort her more than anything she might have thought or made up to hide her fear and sense of not belonging. _The people haven't,_ she repeated in her head. Of course they hadn't. The court's alchemist always said as much. He was already old when he was offered to become a vampire, and to his credit he'd been the only member of the court who had refused it. Serana remembered asking him that precise question, although in entirely different tones and with entirely different perspectives. _Won't the world change around us?_ The man had raised his gaze to meet hers and had smiled gloomily. _As far as I'm concerned, people never change. Some make up principles as they grow old, while others, very few, get shrewder. They don't change. They never do._ That simple memory hadn't emerged because, as always, her mind worked better against her than in her favor. Furthermore, the further she thought about the alchemist the more she realized he resembled Azrael in many ways. They were very different people, but they had some things in common. _I should tell him about that, one day._ For the time being, she was calmer and content with that.

Shadowmere paced in the grass, heading father and farther away from the road, keeping her head up and casting flaring glances at her surroundings. Azrael, probably knowing that she was on watch, was looking straight into the distance. Serana could see his hands disappear behind his frame, and she guessed they were grasping the steed's hair. She had noticed that he alternated between various demeanors, that despite seeming very different were each part of a whole. Most of the times he was a mixture of the three, of the first two more precisely, but at times one became more clearly noticeable. There were moments when he was fully present and fully awake, and those were the moments when he was most terrifying. One could almost feel his connection with the present moment, she certainly could, and that contact gave him an amount of inner strength that seeped from his frame like fire. His presence because imposing and commanding, and very different things happened in relation to what was occurring around him. She remembered the first moments with him, when that overpowering force had choked and caged her, and it felt like a cold impenetrable irradiated from him. During the journey, however, he had been like that again and the strength he had was molded in a protective and soothing vigor. That was the first. Then, there were other moments when he seemed to cool down and drop every immediate contact with the present. He could snap tersely right back if anything happened, that she didn't doubt, but he appeared distant and focused nonetheless. If she had to guess, those were the moments when he channeled all of his immense mental energy on the creation of one of his fiendishly complex and intricate plans and thoughts. In those moments, an intense energy sizzled around him and screamed to leave him alone to his investigation and his analyses. Lastly, there were moments like the one they were in. Even though incredibly rare, as far as she could tell in the almost five days she'd been with him, they were the ones that intrigued her the most. Whereas normally he kept an impenetrable aegis around him, there were lapses of time when he alleviated his defenses and became absent and indifferent, his usual coldness turning into an unresponsive and apathetic temperament. _Are you all right?_ she had once asked, doubting if he was feeling well. She'd even thought about the vampiric infection having taken hold and the Sanguinare Vampiris already spreading in his body, or something along those lines, but he had simply shaken his head in an extremely sluggish manner. _Daydreaming,_ he'd said, without even structuring a sentence. She couldn't imagine him daydreaming, but what reasons did he have to lie? _Many_ , she told herself, but she still thought he was being sincere.

She had just seen it again, but it lasted even less than the last. 'Get down,' he said, turning towards her and giving a last pull on Shadowmere's hair, making her stop. By the time she had finished recalling, he was back to his usual self. The mixed one, without any trait clearly having the better of the three.

As soon as she understood the situation, she furrowed her eyebrows. 'Why are we getting off here?' Bending her right leg and bringing it to the left, she leaned on her hands and jumped down the saddle. As she touched the ground she turned right back in his direction and removed the locks of black hair from her face. 'You said we would stop in Dragon Bridge.'

Azrael was brushing his gauntlet with two fingers of the opposite hand, but she couldn't guess what he was doing or looking at. 'We are at Dragon Bridge. The first windmill is just behind that turn,' he said, casting a glance at the road, which continued onward hidden from their view. 'We'll walk the remaining distance. Shadowmere can't be seen in my company. Don't worry about the Scroll. It remains with her and she wont' be noticed.'

'Has no one beside you ever seen her?' It was possible, but nonetheless quite difficult to pull off. 'Not even once?'

'Someone did,' he answered, putting his hands on the saddle, jumping down and landing on the ground. 'Not common people though. The members of the organizations I work with have, several times over.'

'But we've met someone on the road,' she argued, keeping her tone tranquil but dropping every courteous note she felt complied to put in it. 'Isn't it possible that they'll talk about what they saw and spread rumors?'

'There are rumors beyond counting.' He opened the two bigger saddlebags and took out a letter and a sealed scroll, which he fastened to his belt. The seal bore and impression resembling the print of a bloodied hand's palm. 'However,' he continued, 'I don't understand what is there you're not understanding. It should have functioned the same way in your father's court. The best way to keep people silent is to make sure they all know but without letting them know others know.' He left her a short moment to wrap her head around it. She needed it, and he knew. She found that attitude a little condescending on his part, but she couldn't deny he need of that little interval to think things through. Normally, she'd wait until the end of the conversation before processing all the information, but the conversations with him weren't much about predetermined subjects and templates to follow, but more instant reasoning and quick flow from topic to topic, something she didn't have too much practice with. Meanwhile, he had closed the saddlebag and knotted the ties firmly. 'I should think nothing of that reasoning was unknown to you. If you really want to hear the rumors, go to the inn and ask anyone to sing the _Hymn of the Dire Rider_.'

She gave him a sideways glance. She feared the implication of that sentence. 'Well, if you had the time it would be great.'

'I won't have the time,' he answered, turning towards her and giving her a downward look, which could be felt even without being seen. She clenched her teeth a little. That answer hadn't been direct, but then again she hadn't asked directly. But it was coming. He had his ways with her, both to understand and to convince her. 'While I handle my dealings, you explore the town. Don't,' he said firmly and coldly, probably seeing the marks of anxiety tensing her face. He turned in the town's direction and paced towards the road. 'Follow me,' he said, 'We meet my contact together, then you're free to go.'

She lowered her head a little and made two quick steps to catch up to him. It seemed she had to improvise, which she didn't like. If he had at least given her suggestions or instructions, she would have known what to do. _I've never been one that strikes out on my own, have I?_ she realized, noticing the reaction and managing to understand what its point was. She preferred to follow instructions. _Or, rather, to be given instructions. Because then I can choose to follow them or defy them. Without instruction, there's no choice._ She was honestly surprised of the introspective streak that had caught up to her in the last few days. She couldn't trace it anywhere specific, but it could have been the vas amount of time she had at her disposal during the days of travel. There was little else to think about rather than how she felt. She wondered, however, if Azrael's remarks about her and the brief discussion they've had had made her thoughts more in tune with his. It seemed a very strange idea, but even common sense could tell that if you spent five days alone with someone you'd change slightly in according to what that someone said or did. Especially if he was the first person seen in four thousand years.

While thinking of that, she suddenly caught up with the fact that she was about to see an enormous amount of people in possibly the next few minutes. It was alleviating to think that probably none of those was like Azrael, but still. She felt exited and frightened at the same time. She knew she'd be alright, but the thought still lingered in her head. Once there, everything would have felt normal, but the anticipation she was putting into it was scaring her. She did miss conversation, and there was one thing in particular that kept her on spikes of curiosity and excitement, which was the fact that no one there knew her. No one. She could say whatever she wanted and smile however much she liked and no one would have had a problem with it. She'd probably had to fend off some curious people and enthusiastic admirers, but that wasn't a problem at all. Speaking without saying anything, getting others to say things they'd never agree to say and avoid dangerous discussions were the three basic skills she had needed to survive at court all her life. Everything that might have happened was going to be exceedingly easier.

In an attempt to keep her preoccupations at bay, she thought about what she remembered of Dragon Bridge. A small town in her time, consisting of just the iconic bridge and a few buildings that served the occasional travelers. She did remember being there once, at a young age, when her father was traveling and had taken his family with him to show his daughter something of the world outside of the castle. _The days when he was still able to smile,_ she remembered, a sting of painful sorrow striking her heart. They hadn't stopped, but she remembered looking at the few houses and guessing what life was there, without stone walls to defend you, without guards and without the halls. _Father smiled,_ she recalled. _He didn't answer. Did he not know? Or did he want to keep me in the dark?_ Nevertheless, there was little more than those few, poor structures at the time. There was some eagerness in her to see what had changed and what hadn't, but a lot of that was buried under her fear of what indeed changed. Or the fear that painful things she wanted to have changed hadn't. She rolled her eyes, Azrael couldn't see her anyway. _Just enjoy it for what it is,_ she told herself.

She quickened her steps again to stay close to him. He was walking very fast. She observed his pacing, but it wasn't overly quick. The length of his steps was the strange thing, or the normal thing considering how much he had to move around. If he couldn't bring Shadowmere near cities, he had to be a resilient hiker. She gazed over at him, and distracted herself in being reminded how strangely amusing it was to look higher than her to meet his eyes' hypothetical position. The only person at court she had to look upwards to meet gazes was Vingalmo, one of those people she was hoping were dead. The Altmer, if his race hadn't too transformed into something else becoming shorter in the process, was taller than her and was probably taller than Azrael too. She instantly regretted thinking about him. The Elf was important to the court, to be sure, but he was an opportunist like she had never seen before. _How many copies of his Treatise on the Altmer Antecedent did he bring to court? Forty? Fifty?_ She didn't remember, but she remembered the rage she felt and the burning glares other people fired at him. She almost wanted to see Azrael have the pleasure to meet him. Her father had kept him at bay, for all he could, almost involuntarily. That Elf looked for alternative ways to do things, and his words meant very little. Harkon would lose his temper and scream, roar and bare his fangs in bursts of anger that were effective as much as they were appalling. Her father wasn't a good man, a smart man nor a wise man, but he knew how to keep his subjects in check and not be run all over by them.

 _Why am I even thinking about this?_ she asked, becoming aware of the immense tension that was blocking her shoulders and forcing her to lower her head. She looked around, but mainly to the West to avoid the sun. Thankfully, the West had the more interesting landscape. She knew that the other side was a mountainside covered by woods. The West, on the contrary, overlooked the vast canyon of the Karth river before it forked and then flowed into its delta, forming the marshes that surrounded Morthal. The gorge was covered by grass wherever it found somewhere to grow, but the rocks were emerging from the sides of the ravine. She remembered it, and the canyon wasn't so deep. It had shaped the dirt and the rock significantly in all those years.

Straight ahead of her, instead, the road took a turn and now she could see the first buildings. The windmill Azrael had talked about was just over the mound of stone and dirt that forced the road to curve. She could see the blades moving in the weak wind coming from the valley. The first constructions to come into her view were houses, more solid than what she remembered. In her days, those buildings would only be seen inside some thick city walls. The first two in particular were built with strong planks of umber brown wood and covered with seam roofs and were isolated from the next of the buildings appearing beyond. _The houses of the windmill's proprietor and his family,_ she guessed, not without difficulty. It always seemed strange to her that many people first built their workplace and then built their residence around that place. Thinking of where she grew up, that logic didn't seem familiar. Not until the alchemist had explained her why Castle Volkihar had been built exactly where it was. _It's a place in the middle of the sea with large banks and no high shores. This was a port, princess,_ she remembered him saying, and something linked in her mind. Something else that linked Azrael with the alchemist. They both called her "princess", and for different reasons they both put a very slight ironic tone in that word.

She was still lost in thought when Azrael slowed to a halt and put a hand to his side to make sure she didn't surpass him. She stopped mid-pace and stepped back to avoid beating her head against his forearm, looking up and following his gaze. 'Is something wrong?' He was looking in between the windmill and the building right next to it, which had a low, wooden roof. The windmill itself faced the valley and its blades still rotated slowly, making a strange howling sound that coupled with the noise of the millstone on the ground. The lower parts of the tall structure were made of stone bricks, while the upper one was wooden. Its shadow was cast directly onto the low building below, and the tight space separating the two was very dark.

Not too dark for her thought, and neither for Azrael it appeared. She could clearly make out the silhouette of a humanoid creature looking at them, and he too had lowered his arm and had turned fully in that direction. He stepped forward, towards the figure, which in turn moved on the edge of the wall where the shadows still hid her. Serana saw her bend forward in what seemed like an informal bow. 'Greetings, Listener,' the figure said, in a soft and respectful voice. A silky contralto.

Serana looked better at the woman. It was a human, and presumably a Nord. She was lean though, and it was easy to guess even under the leather armor she wore and the scarf and shawl pinned to the chestpiece, which covered her throat and head and fell down her right shoulder. The studded leather leggings and boots were light, reinforced with heavier protection on the spots more likely to get hit. The cuirass had steel reinforcements, but the general design was similar. The gloves were half-fingered, with a thicker cover on the whole vambrace. The leather used was both black and dark red, black for the camouflage and red because of the heraldry the craftsman had in mind when designing and creating the suit. At first glance, it seemed designed not so much for combat as for being work for long periods of time. There was sufficient protection, true, and the combatant inside could have used if effectively if agile enough, but for any kind of fight that looked a bit too light. She was no expert, but she knew something. _This woman doesn't fight fairly with her opponents, I'd say,_ she thought, seizing her up with a glance. Thanks to her empowered vision in the dark, she could make out her features, including the light green of her eyes and the auburn lock of hair coming out of her hood and disappearing in the folds of the scarf.

'Laegiine,' Azrael greeted her back. By name, unless that was a title in a strange language or something else she had too little imagination to think of.

The woman had greeted him in a tone that was, albeit very courteous, too familiar and too tranquil to make that meeting fall into a chance encounter. _They know each other and they know each other quite well,_ she said to herself, never taking her eyes away from the woman, Laegiine, for too long. Azrael's tone had, in turn, been somewhat softer than his usual one. That not only meant he knew her, but had some degree of regard for her. The reason was unknown, but if he looked very much like a rogue, then she did even more so. A longbow was strapped to her back and the grey fletching of a dozen or so arrows were visible in between the shawl's folds. From her belt hung down a sharp and extremely thin black dagger, which wasn't so much for fighting as for cutting throats and piercing armors, if thrust precisely. She brought along no other weapons she could see, but killers of her kind usually had something more hidden away from view. A dagger in the boot was normal, but sometimes they found more creative ways. An assassin for hire she had seen around the court sometimes, a woman, always presented herself with a gorgeous hairstyle, but only very few knew that the only purpose of that was to hide a small stiletto inside her hair. The more she looked at Azrael's partner, the more she suspected she might have been one of such people.

Laegiine's eyes shifted on Serana, and the two women held each other's gaze for a long moment. Serana, in any other occasion, was sure she'd have won that subtle fight, but not while feeling so isolated and lost. Her vampiric powers barely made her presence known. She felt a familiar bristling in her eyes, but it wasn't powerful enough to make a significant effect. If anything, if gave her the necessary flare to hold the woman's gaze without hesitation. Besides, despite her need to defend herself, Laegiine's eyes weren't aggressive. Merely curious. Probably understanding that she wouldn't have gotten anything out of her, she turned again to Azrael. _Listener, she called him. I wonder what that means._

'Who's her? A new recruit?' she asked, rather directly.

'Nothing that should concern you right now,' Azrael answered, equally if not more directly. Those two, in their time together, certainly didn't mince words. He turned slightly behind towards Serana. 'You're free to go now,' he said.

That was it. He spoke truly before. He was dismissing her, nothing more. 'That's it?' she asked, slightly crossed. He had warned her and she was prepared, but she didn't really want to believe it. 'You won't help me?'

Azrael stopped his head from turning fully towards Laegiine and reverted the movement, rotating and hinging on one foot to fully face her. The cloak flatted on his left and the hood shook momentarily. The black void hiding his face was pointed directly at her eyes and all his imposing stature towered over her, until she felt the need to step back. 'I won't pretend to be your knight in shining armor,' he said, his voice harder and deeper than usual. 'Despite the saying, your wish is not my command and neither is your feminine whim.'

Had there been any saliva in her mouth, she would have swallowed every last drop of it. All she could do was lower her gaze, something the woman couldn't make her do. He knew. It wasn't him, it was her. He knew that she wasn't comfortable, but knew better than her that there was no reason to require assistance. _I can do everything on my own, I'd probably do more than what I could do in his company,_ she admitted unwillingly. The remarkable thing was that he had said nothing of that to hurt her. _He understood me, even guessed my struggles. If only he didn't lay them out that way…_ It was just the truth, what he had said, but it was his way of framing it that made it sound every bit as hard as it really was. It was a good thing, under a certain light, but then again, he seemed to treat others as if he was speaking to himself. He was strong, nobody could deny that, but others weren't. Not as much as him. If said to him, he could endure every one of the statements he had made about others, but those people couldn't. And, while her mind was on its tangent retracing those things and thoughts, her still heart was sinking deeper and deeper into her ribcage. From somewhere deep within, she found the strength to block her head going down and then raise her gaze again. It was pointless to fight him, but maybe he could understand.

And strangely, it seemed so. The silence immediately felt less heavy, and it was soon broken by his shallow sigh. 'You have till Noon,' he said, unemotionally but less hard. 'The Sun is getting hotter with the advancing season, so I'd suggest you do everything you want to do outdoors in the next hour. Find a place indoors next, safe from the light. If I were you, I'd go to the new bookshop and try to learn something. I'd advise you not to get me into any trouble, but you're an adult, euphemistically speaking,' he said, lowering his voice enough to render the jest obvious, 'and you're smart enough to handle yourself. More importantly, to handle people. You're good at that, so make that count.'

'You've been handling him,' Laegiine said from behind him, resting against the building's corner, 'I can't think of a better training.'

'Hilarious.'

Much to Serana's surprise, the woman laughed silkily, lowering her head and suffocating the sound in the shawl. There was no one around near them, but there were people walking about further onward on the road. Their humming of the crowd reached the three of them, and Laegiine was probably worried her laughter would reach the lot of them. _Has anyone in this city even seen her? Is she supposed not to be seen by anyone?_

'Regardless,' Azrael continued, 'you're off. When I'm done, I'll find you.' She didn't doubt that. He would find her, anywhere she went.

He turned around with a shrug meant to adjust the cloak and cast a short glance at the woman, who nodded silently, unfolded her arms and made way through the two buildings. He followed her, lowering his head and bending his back to make sure the black bow didn't hit the bulging part of the roof. Serana looked as both of them turned behind the corner and disappeared behind the stone chunks that made up the windmill. She could hear Laegiine's silky contralto murmuring something indistinct. _Clearly something she doesn't want me to hear,_ she thought. There was a low rustling, and then the vibrant note of Azrael's voice. _Who is she? What are they talking about?_ The rationale she was using was curiosity, but deep inside something murmured that she had to discover what her savior was up to. Her own strange kind of obsession was taking hold. _What if she's here to capture me and he's briefing her on how to do it? Maybe she's an expert on vampires who knows how to torture one. What if…_

She looked in between the two buildings, in the tight, shadowed space where they had both disappeared. No light brightened up that passage not, nor in any time of the day probably. The soil was completely bare, without even a grass blade growing. It was so simple, merely a matter of following them and hiding somewhere they weren't looking and wouldn't have probably looked. Her hearing was better than any mortal's and she could have picked up anything they said from a distance that they wouldn't have thought possible. The only problem was getting rid of the physical obstacle, the windmill in her case, standing between the source of the sound and herself. All it took was a little caution; she was as silent as ever, and her vampiric powers helped her. At any point, if required, they could have made her disappear from view without fail. There was no risk involved. _Who cares what happened in the world while I was gone. I'll have time for that. Right now, I want to know what they're up to._

She stepped forward, in the shadows, immediately feeling some relief as the sun ceased its direct contact with her protection. The lymph in her veins cooled and moments later stopped boiling as it had before. She was much pleased, and she used the resolve given to her by that newfound comfort to steel herself into pursuing her goal. She wasn't always aware, but in the few days they had spent together Azrael had put himself in a very strange position in her life. The first impressions she had about people were extremely strong and almost impossible to change, and the place where the Dunmer had ended up was a curious one, that mixed the traits of a protective and hostile figure at the same time. Aside from the hundreds of characteristics that combination could create, the immediate effect was that she had an impossibly hard time disobeying his orders and doing so required a tremendous willpower. On the other hand, she felt as if she had to defy those orders to become better and to separate her from him, resulting in independence. However, she never felt strong enough to openly defy him for long. Her attempt to resist him sending her away had been the strongest one by far since they had met, and his reaction had been exactly what feared would happen. Thus, she needed to find other ways to defy him. Hidden ways, if necessary. That was what she was doing.

She peaked out at the end of the passage, focused on the sounds. The voices came from a dip in the terrain, which looked accessible through a passage between two rocks that the two had probably used. Instead of following the obvious route, she got up in a mound that overlooked the general direction from where the voices came from. A few bushes hid its top portion somewhat, which would have been a decent place to hide. _To eavesdrop,_ she pointed out in her mind.

She skulked to the top, crouching in between the bushes and listening intently. She heard their words now, clearly. 'Yes, Listener, of course,' Laegiine was saying, in a voice that was different from before, lower and more serious even if with her particular lightness. Looking ahead, she realized that the dip was actually a very small pond. There was some snow on its sides that was thawing inside it, and the water was opaque and blue. The other side of the mound she'd climbed was rocky and almost vertical, and she saw the woman's boots on a rock lying right on the water's side. They were sitting there comfortably, talking like the partners or friends they probably were. That title, Listener, was still unclear to her. _Probably something else that happened in the four thousand years I've been sleeping._ Meanwhile, some other thoughts were laying siege to her head. Voices asking and wondering if those two, who clearly knew each other, were or had been at some point in their lives, lovers. It made no sense to her, why should she care, but she cared nonetheless.

'I don't want to disrupt your activities, Master. You summoned me to ask me a favor and I obeyed, but I supposed you'd be in quite a rush.'

'I am,' Azrael answered. 'But I have time for you. I had the time for Wildach, I had the time for Agarur, and I have the time for you now. What is it?'

'Recently,' she began, not resisting further and answering the question without further ado, 'some contracts have been given to use that require us to eliminate some targets that, on paper, seem quite ordinary. Only later we discovered that they were all vampires. Every one. Sometimes ones that hide at the very end of a den filled with the filthy entourages. The problem is that none of us, except Babette on special occasions, can fulfill those. Too high a risk. We'd die if we dared to enter.'

'Tell our Siblings to put those aside for the moment.'

A brief pause separated Azrael order with the request for explanation that could be heard coming from a mile away. 'Can we afford to do that? We've been a consistent presence around for less than a year, wouldn't that be a clear message that we are not powerful enough to deal with those threats?'

'We can afford it, precisely because of your concern. The people hiring us will see how long it will take us to complete those, and with time they'll opt for other methods. We're not fighters and certainly not crusaders. That isn't our area of expertise, and it will be apparent as soon as we show that they are not our priority.' His explanation wasn't different as far as the unemotional delivery was concerned, but he was clarifying things point by point, very clearly and with a sort of coolness that resembled, but superficially didn't seem the same as, patience. 'Financially wise, there's nothing to worry about. The uproar caused by our return is still strongly felt and it will continue to be like this at least until the next winter. By that time, the Civil War will resume. And as soon as it does, both us and the Guild will drown in gold. Anyhow, who's issuing those contract on the vampires?'

'A female Bosmer, goes by the name of Beleval. Do you want…' The voice trailed off, but Serana could only imagine Azrael had guessed the question and had given a nod or some other sign of confirmation. 'A strange fella,' she continued afterwards, 'wearing only a leather gambeson during her interactions with us, almost as if she had left her armor somewhere.' There was a wry and conspiratorial note in her voice. 'Nazir met her outside Riften, where she presented him with a series of people she wanted dead. Nothing strange there, but then she handed him a bag of gold that he could barely carry. He brought back the gold along with the details to the Sanctuary and we discussed for a while. Babette was immediately put to work, but there were problems.'

'She was working for someone, was she not?'

'She didn't say it, but we know she does. And if our little elder Sister is to be trusted, it's someone you know well. The—' Once again she trailed off, but this time it was less natural than before. It sounded as if she had been interrupted. 'I can understand they want them dead,' she continued, like nothing ever happened, 'but from what we know they need resources desperately. I just don't know and can't figure out from where all that gold is coming from.'

'We do know,' Azrael said. 'When I went to the Guild, Brynjolf told me they were intentioned on sending them anonymous funding, but as far as I know their leader would never lower himself to such methods. Furthermore, that gold could have been used more effectively elsewhere. I'll check back with Karliah and I'll have someone inspecting if this Beleval is on patrol duty in Dayspring Canyon, but my guess is that she received the gold to be brought to her superior and she thought she could use it in more efficient ways. I've met Isran, and if he had received that amount of gold I'm sure we'd have heard of it by now. Despite his sense of honor, I feel like he's enough of a realist to forbear from asking questions when the money's coming his way.'

The Dunmer paused for a moment. Serana guessed many things could be asked, but the silence endured. Laegiine was distractedly drumming the tip of her boots together on the stone on the pond's side. She was probably waiting for her Listener, or Master as she had called him a few times, to continue. Serana, as far as she was concerned, was trying to piece together something meaningful from all that but with very few results. Besides, that silence was laden with tension and she had the feeling Azrael would abstract and start planning. This was one more way of him being always a step ahead. What to Laegiine might have looked like a normal discussion or reasoning was merely a outline and assembling for him, as if he was thinking aloud. That had ended. Now the pragmatic and the real came, the moment when his theorizing became concrete by the means of his schemes.

'If they're involved, even minimally, this might turn into a nightmarish conundrum,' Azrael said, slowly and coldly. 'Forget what I said earlier. Tell our Siblings to abandon immediately every pursuit of the vampire contracts. Do not, under any circumstances, recommence those before I explicitly say you can.'

'Of course, Listener. As you command. May I—'

'One moment.'

 _What's happening?_ Serana wondered, sweeping her gaze around her and behind her, looking for anything that might have been the cause of that reaction. One moment, the Dark Elf's voice was still echoing and the next a tear had been opened in Aetherius and a steady stream of magicka was bleeding out of it. The ethereal power was channeled to a spot underneath her, generating a pulsing beacon of energy. It took a few more moments to realized that Azrael himself was the source of the tear, and it was the first time she had seen him use conventional magic. _What is he doing? I can't quite understand what spell…_

'Serana.'

She tried to trick herself into thinking it was a mention and that they would now start to talk about her, but she knew it wasn't the case. Whatever spell he had used, he had found her. _An incantation that locates the absence of life, probably_ , she thought, while stepping back outside of the bush almost involuntarily. The attempt was to get away, but the sudden movement made the branches to move and scratch one another, making it painfully clear that whoever was hiding in the vegetation had now come out of hiding. Still, the smart thing was to do nothing. The teasing thing was to nonchalantly respond, but she didn't feel in the position to do that. Azrael wouldn't have needed confirmation, so she waited. Not overly long.

'What did "you're off" mean four thousand years ago? That would be your only excuse.' As always, it was hard to read his voice, but he sounded as if he had almost expected it to happen. 'You have nothing to worry about. You're not the center of anyone's world, rather obviously, and no one is coming to get you. If it's me you're worried about, know that you're not the center of my world all the same. I have other matters to attend to. Matters I'm giving over to Laegiine so that I can come with you.' His brief pause began, where she was supposed to sort out everything he had said and where she was allowed to ask questions. 'If everything's clear, go.'

As silently as she could, she opened her hand and let go of the branches she'd grasped to keep them from making noise. It hadn't helped her, but it had been worth trying. As had been the case for some other times in the past few days, Azrael had synthesized and melded the whole content of her vague thoughts into one and linear reasoning. Surprisingly enough, she trusted those more than her own mental chatter. _That's something I hope goes away when we get back,_ she thought, but she was uncertain. _It's only because he's the first person you've seen in four thousand years_ , she repeated herself. She hadn't yet wrapped her head around that, as if her mind was unable to understand its full meaning. _Whatever, we'll see what happens now in the town. Then I'll know. Other people other than that Elf, at least._

She didn't see a link between him and other people in her past, aside from the alchemist, but there had to be a reason for her feelings. Mixed feelings, she frequently reminded herself. _Of everything, I value his opinion most. I always try to ask it or understand it._ There were times when she almost suspected herself of doing things just to get a response from him. She had time and time again noticed her need for strong reactions at her words or feats, and Azrael wasn't the best person for that. Best case scenario, he picked up the intellectual thread but didn't react emotionally in almost any way. Actually, she had never seen him display clearly any emotion that wasn't anger, and she wasn't so sure about that even. He went beyond emotions sometimes. For instance, when she expected a reaction from him, he coolly stated his opinion on the matter, whether similar or utterly conflicting to hers. Perhaps he realized that a passionate reaction was the way she understood where others stood. He merely found his own way of saying it, though detaching strongly from her expectation.

She shook her head and found herself still standing still. Neither Azrael nor Laegiine had uttered another word. _Maybe they're really talking about you and he was lying…_ she considered, but upon recollecting Azrael's words she remade her decision clearly. _Let's go away from here. And stop thinking about him all the time. I know, it's the only thing I can think about, but that doesn't change anything._ She raised her head and looked at the way she had come, the tight space between the mill and the building with the low roof. There seemed to be a magical or at least symbolic significance to that passage now, but she couldn't understand it in full. It was an emblem of her lack of trust perhaps, and crossing it again to get back to the road made her slightly nervous. _I'm always nervous, though._

She walked through the space not so long after, and of course nothing happened. Upon arriving at the other end of the passage, she put her gloved hand on the vertical log functioning as corner pillar of the building and looked towards the town. There seemed to be more people than before, but she was fully aware that it might have just depended on her noticing them more now than before, since at the moment they were her main concern. _It might actually be better not to have the Scroll on my back._ Of course, everyone would be slightly baffled upon seeing a hooded figure garbed in an elaborate armor, the design of which probably didn't exist anymore, walking around their streets. However, if there was anything she trusted herself with, was dealing with others. People were her specialty. It wasn't as if she didn't foresee any problems, but none unsurpassable.

She came around the corner, sticking to the shadow as long as she could. Azrael was right. The sunlight wasn't enough to impede her, but as the Sun rose higher it would inevitably become painful to endure. There wasn't much time she could spend in the open, and she intended to make every minute count. A step followed another, and despite her few insecurities she kept walking at a regular pace, getting closer and closer to the small crowd and eyeing the first real buildings of the city that weren't merely residential. A couple had insignias hanging from metal rods set inside the wood. The seam roofs continued to be the standard solution for the houses, hinting at the fact that the snow fallen that winter had been exceptional, because very few things about those houses were planned to sustain heavy snows.

After the buildings, she looked at the people. They were all members of that group that wasn't so well known at court, that was both treated with distance and regard, disdain and care at the same time. The populace, the common folk, the plebs, all terms that seemed so alien inside the castle walls. Only in her later years she had found herself among them and, to her surprise, enjoying their company. Her father always said they were dangerous, that they would kill her if they knew who she was or what valuables she carried. As far as she had traveled, none of those things had ever happened. She had encountered kind and warm people along with rude and unwelcoming ones, but at least they didn't wear masks all the time. If they did, they were considerably simpler than the ones at home. They were simple. And like everything that's simple, it's also easy to exploit. She had always found the minds of mortals to be extraordinarily malleable. _Like clay._

A boy in a rough white apron walked past her in a hurry, and by the look of it he was probably headed for the windmill. She cast a glance at him, observing what she could. Blonde, rough hair and hazel eyes. Broad shoulders and strong legs. _A worker, clearly a Nord._ He hadn't seemed to notice her, which mildly surprised her. He must have been lost in thought or very focused on his task to completely ignore her. She had not yet entered the small crowd and she could almost sense six eyes staring at her from different directions. _Shoulders open and back straight, princess._ Ever since Azrael had started using that name to tease her, she had taken a liking into it. She didn't know why exactly.

Of the three gazes she felt, she could swear two of them at least were women's. She knew a woman's stare from a man's, even when that man wasn't interested in her. She looked around, discreetly searching for those discreetly gazing at her. Upon turning to her left, she met the eyes of one. The hood gave her an advantage, and she was able to move a little past the girl without her suspecting of being watched. But from the shadow, she took a good look. A redhead, her face bristling with freckles. Her eyes were inquisitive but shy, and they immediately lost their energy when Serana shifted her head and made it clearer she was being observed. _A young one,_ she thought, sweeping a glance to the other side and trying to find the other two. _I was curious too, when I had your age._ Almost to show her the irony of it all, the other person locking a stare on her was an old woman. _Sixty, I'd say. Yes, well…_ She grinned, careful not to show her fangs. _Externally, I'm more like that girl, but internally I might resemble her more. Such is my world._ That irony that had caught up to her seemed another of Azrael's passive influences over her. He had a way of drawing the pathetic and the deplorable out of the most noble and virtuous things. It was an interesting point of view to have, and she had absorbed some of it.

'Fish! Fresh fish!' she heard in the distance, sharp even in between the voices and the buzz. In the corner, at the end of a long series of buildings, stood the man that had hollered, positioned behind a stand with various fishes laid on it. Only a few people turned around, and those that did walked straight in the man's direction. _Dragon Bridge's a small town,_ Serana thought, looking at the indifference of all the rest of the people around. _They must all know each other and be on first name basis with everyone._

She walked by the stall of what looked to be a leather tanner. A couple of cloaks, a collection of rough brown hoods and two pairs of boots were the most noticeable things on display. There was a woman examining the hoods with a keen eye and a man discussing with the furrier himself, but their voices were rendered indistinct by the humming around them. There was a meat vendor on the other side, with many salty beefs on display. Passing by her was a woman carrying a wooden bucket with water lapping inside and spilling on the ground at every step. _There are no wells that I can see._ _The river's water must be clean then._

There was a smaller building just ahead of her, on the right. Her side. She was still on the shadowed part of the road, avoiding direct sunlight as long as she could. The edifice was well kept and had two windows of thin glass on its side. _That's expensive,_ she thought, _I wouldn't think someone from here might afford that luxury._ She looked at the door, or more specifically at the engraving on its wood, made with a very fine scalpel by a very precise hand. _Dunard' Bookshop_ , the carving read. _This must be the one Azrael talked about._ It was undeniably strange to find a bookshop in such a small town, but it was the only way to travel safely from Solitude to the other provinces. Even though it bordered with the Reach, it was still considered safer than the road passing through Morthal. _That says something about those marshlands. If people prefer…_

Something sturdy and hard, clearly not a person, grazed her on the waist. The armor absorbed the impact and nothing at all happened, but she stepped forward involuntarily. She turned, only to see a young woman with a large pushcart filled to the brim with jugs bending to look at the wheelbarrow's wheel. 'Awful sorry,' she mumbled, glancing briefly at her.

The words came out of Serana's mouth faster than she could think. 'Pardon me, madam,' she said, still struggling to keep her fangs hidden in spite of the smile and thus putting even less thought into her words. 'I was in the way.'

The young woman stopped fumbling with the wheel and raised her head promptly, a blissful but mock-serious expression on her face. She placed both hands on the hips and grinned. 'Huh! Madam! Nobody has ever called me a madam before!' She had bright blue eyes and a pair or meaty cheeks that, despite her not being older than thirty, gave a a very seasoned-soul look to her. She bent and looked at the wheel again, but without shifting her hands from her waistline. 'And where are you from, kind lass? Not from here, that I know, but your accent… It sounds ours.'

 _You've not said a thing, and you're already in trouble._ She nodded twice, even though the woman wasn't looking at her. 'Yes, I'm from Skyrim, but I've traveled a lot in my life.' There were ways of fixing the mistake she had just made, luckily. 'I went in different places, I had to learn etiquette far further than its basis.'

'You're very young to have traveled a lot. You're a lucky girl. How old are you? Twenty? Twenty-five?'

Those mistakes were harder to fix. Of course, she showed around a third of the years she really had. _She's not wrong on the age, I was twenty-three when I undertook the ritual._ The thought of the rite cast a shiver down her spine, which she suppressed. _As for my real age, well… I'm seventy-eight in the head, but it seems like I've left behind just a couple of years._ The humor pushed away the gloom and the sorrow. She returned to the topic at hand, which was dismissing the woman's curiosity in a non-caustic way. She could have disappeared right in front of her if she so wished, but then it wouldn't be wise to show herself again. No, she needed something more simple. But she was already feeling her fear rising, gripping her throat and threatening to choke her.

'My mother was a traveler,' she said, blatantly evading the question about her age. 'I was born in foreign land and I've been wandering ever since.' The lie crashed hard against her desire to further connect with the woman. She wanted to, she really did, but it wasn't safe. _But what is safe, exactly? It's not here, it's not at home. I guess I haven't found any safe place yet. And I'm old._

'What a fluky lass you are!' exclaimed the woman, nodding vigorously. 'How long will you be staying here?' she asked, tilting her head. 'I'd like to hear your stories!' Her cries had attracted a small crowd, two younger girls and three boys. All quite young. The older ones were working and hadn't given in to the curiosity.

Serana glanced carefully at them. She had her back against the wall and little way of going away without looking rude, something that would have only reinforced the attention she was receiving. A vampire's presence is powerful, and even those who cannot consciously perceive it feel naturally drawn to it. That she knew. And she hadn't calculated to the full extent. She truly was the center of the attention. The two girls had opposite feelings for her. One was smiling at her benevolently and full of interest while the other was glaring at her, forcing a beam on her lips just to avoid suspicion. Of the three boys, two were genuinely interested. The last was on the verge of falling to her feet at any moment. She could tell. She could always tell.

 _This is my way out; probably my only way out._ Her body sizzled with strange energies for mere moments while she looked at him, feeling her own gaze becoming more intense and forceful. The wide green eyes of the young boy couldn't bare the contact and broke off the link, but she knew at once she had succeeded. She felt the energies relapsing back to her instinctual core and plunging into the half-sleep where they waited her to go thirstier for blood. As far as she was concerned, she didn't need them anymore. They would come, if needed. The young man she had glanced at wasn't merely seduced, it was practically hers to control. There were people that were more vulnerable than others to the charms of a vampire, and he was one of them. Considering that he was vulnerable in his own right, that she had a pretty figure and was a pureblooded vampire, the chances of him resisting were non-existent.

'I'll be staying a while,' she said, shortly glancing at the woman with the cart to avoid looking too iffy, but then turning immediately to the boy. 'You, youthful sir, why don't you accompany me in the bookshop. I'd very much like to see it.'

He still didn't have the strength to look at her. His head raised a little, but she couldn't probably see higher than her neck. 'I'd…' he muttered with difficulty, 'be honored to do it.' Even with his gaze lowered, she could still guess it. She had seen it so many times. At first, it was difficult to make use of someone showing such feelings, but with time two things had become apparent. One, that it wasn't worth it to consider the goodness of the act because, second thing, those feelings weren't genuine. In most cases, they were born of dark powers she unleashed at will. Those people she used weren't themselves, and as long as they weren't themselves she didn't feel guilty to the point of giving up the opportunity. And in that moment, saving herself from the question of the woman was more important than any of those thoughts.

'I'll be back shortly, with stories of my travels,' she said, giving a respectful bow to her small crowd. 'I'll see all of you shortly.' Another lie. _And once again, I'm counting on Azrael. This time I'm counting on him being discreet and subtle._ She looked at the young boy and smiled faintly. 'Shall we?' she said softly. _I hope I look normal. If my heart were beating, it'd be pounding like a hammer and anvil._

He nodded stiffly. 'Yes, yes… Let's.' He stole a very quick glance back at the other two men, which did have clear signs of confusion on their faces. After that, he raised his head and breathed nervously, walking beside her so that his shoulder grazed his pauldron. She looked for any signs of blushing, but she didn't see any.

 _He didn't regret that,_ she thought, holding back her grin. It either meant he was more used to deal with women than she thought or, more probably, she had done a really excellent job. The boy opened the door with an eager vibe in his every motion, ignoring the puzzled or scolding looks coming his way. The woman with the handcart had moved away, to fix her wheel. The other two boys had distanced themselves, not wanting to intrude, and the two girls were walking away. Not without casting glances at their backs, though. _I'll be the talk of the town for two days straight,_ she told herself, feeling the impulse to sigh but not finding any air in her lungs to do so.

Meanwhile, the young man backed away from the door and smiled shyly. 'There you go, m'lady.' He signaled the inside of the building with a stiff but wide gesture. 'You'll find anything you need there. I…' This time he blushed somewhat, very faintly. 'I have to go, but if you need anything, I'll be around. Ask for me. Name's Advon.'

'Thanks, Advon,' she said neutrally. She didn't want to blind the man with desire, a power that was realistically at her very fingertips. He needed to be pushed away, so that the magic wouldn't find ways in his head that it wasn't supposed to. 'Who could help me inside? Is there a shopkeeper?'

'Dunard. He's a Breton, settled here some months past.' The man's gaze was blank, as if he was thinking of something. He was thinking of ways to stay there, or to compel her to come with him.

 _Men are so predictable, and when my powers enter the picture they're stripped of what little complexity they have. Such simple creatures._ Looking into Advon's eyes was like reading a book with his every thought written onto it. And still, in spite of that success and in spite of how relatively easily she had resolved the matter with the peasants, more and more fear was clenching at her throat. She knew her own fear, but she had never learned to deal with it. In that moment, everything she wanted was to have someone else beside her, a person she trusted who could say everything was secure and she was doing all right. That wasn't easy though, because to enter that list of people certain requirements had to be met. Firstly, one would need more wit and a clearer mind than the young boy, smitten and cloud-minded, who couldn't reason clearly. _A thrall, even one not bound by blood, would jump into the abyss for his master. He'd certainly say whatever controlled demands._ Secondly, she didn't just trust anyone. Very few people had that requirement, and everyone that had was far away or gone. Except one. Azrael. He wasn't there with her. He had abandoned her, too. _No, he hasn't. He's coming back, and when he does I'll be displeased to be leaving._ And again she thought about it. She couldn't know if he would be her first choice, if given one, but he was the only person he had. He undoubtedly knew it. And he was probably exploiting it.

 _Do I envy him?_

She quickly understood two things. That she didn't know how to begin answering that question and that her mind was rushing too fast for her to take a moment and think about it. Right now she was afraid, and she wanted to do something that would decrease her anxiety. Entering that opened door seemed a tempting option, and she would do it in a moment, but knowing it wouldn't any good to quell her worries.

'Thank you again,' she said, turning back to the young man and stepping on the threshold. She grabbed the doorknob and pushed the door open, but she could almost hear him trying to say something more. 'What is it?' she asked without turning around.

'Will you be staying here? Like you told Gure?' There was the vampiric slave's plea in his voice.

 _Gure must be the name of the handcart's woman._ 'I believe I will, unless something strange occurs. I bid you farewell, Advon. I must really get inside the bookshop.'

'Of course.'

Serana stepped inside and kept one hand on the handle, pulling. The door, however, closer way faster than she could ever pull. She allowed herself to laugh under he breath. _Did he really close it for me?_ There were things about her once fellow mortals that she had completely forgotten about. The vampires had manners, but almost all of them were rugged and bitter on the inside. No one at her father's court would have done something so foolishly genuine such as that. She didn't know which one she preferred of the two. The court was more predictable and hostile, while the common people warm but too spontaneous to be predictable.

The aching of the indirect sunlight vanished gradually as the cool air of the building's interior seeped through the spaces in her armor. Her face felt the quickest change, to the point where she almost felt like lowering the hood, but on second thought she decided against it. She wasn't too keen on showing her face. No one would probably pick up enough signs in her face to immediately guess she was a vampire, especially since she wasn't so visibly touched by it, but just in case it was better not to. There were many a vampires living among men without anyone noticing, but they had less to lose than she did, and they could feed frequently on top. Her eyes in particular worried her. Five days after her feeding and in a place without much light, they would have faintly glowed of the same color as rust.

 _About light…_ she thought, remembering the two glass windows and wondering why the place was so dark inside. The building wasn't on one story only, but two. The windows were on the upper one, and the ground level was brightened up only by a coupe of torches and a lantern. The walls were of dark wood, and the floor was made of large planks. There was another window on the opposite side, judging by the paler light, which she couldn't see. The bookcases covered every wall and there was one more in the middle of the room. She could just glimpse at the flight of stairs on the opposite side leading to the upper floor. Just beside the door, on the left if entering, was a desk with an inkwell and a quill. The seat was empty. _This Dunard must be somewhere else. Maybe…_ She could barely hear a foot drumming on the floor above her thanks to her sharp hearing. _I wouldn't really like an intrusion, so maybe it's best if I remain silent._

With careful paces, she walked up to the bookcase in the middle, laying her steps only on one of the large planks that made up the floor to avoid any unnecessary creaking. The sections of the case were strange; around half were brand new and another half were humid and almost rotten. She didn't give too much thought about it, there weren't any obvious reasons as to why that was the case and it wasn't her immediate concern anyway. Her concern were the books which, unlike the shelves, were remarkably well-preserved. _Someone does like his tomes, around here,_ she thought, casting a glance above her, where the drumming still continued. Whoever it was, he was unaware or uncaring of the fact that his door had been opened and closed.

 _So… History books. I always disliked history books._ The first titles she found didn't seem to have anything to do with history. They were narratives, not technical texts. _The Cabin in the Woods, by Mogen Son of Molag. Doesn't look like anything that might interest me._ Next to it laid six books with nearly identical spines, the only thing changing being the number. _A Dance in Fire, by Waughin Jarth. Six, no… Seven volumes. The second one's missing._ She walked past the board separating the different section, and the ones in the new one were slimmer and shorter books. There was an inscription made with chalk above which read "Drama". The skimmed through most of the titles, uninterested, except for one that caught her eye just briefly. Two short, orange paperbacks with nearly the same spine. _The Lusty Argonian Maid…_ She turned her head around, feeling the urge to sigh. _What will they think of next?_

That was actually a fair question. The question had been buzzing around in her mind since she had entered, but she didn't really feel it until that moment. Whatever happened during her time, four thousand years before, was probably nothing more than myth to those living in that Era. The Fourth Era. When she learned her families timeline, she was astonished that there even was a distinction between two Eras. Now there were five. The light feeling of carefreeness given to her by the silly titles she had passed by vanished slowly, despite her trying to grasp its remain. A feeling of helplessness and deep sorrow started to hover above her, like black rain clouds before a thunderstorm. That was the reason she disliked loneliness. She felt more secure, but it was also the time when other thoughts managed to get the better of her. _It's the time when…_

She halted immediately, because even without her conscious attention her eyes had managed to register something important. It was a book with a grey, tattered cover. _Ancestors and the Dunmer,_ the title read on the spine. That was indeed something she was interested in. _This could tell me so much about him… Let's see. What else?_ She was in the right place, that was for sure. Right next to it were four tomes with the same spine, a greyish and very grim looking one. _Brief History of the Empire, by Stronach k'Thojj III. I'll need it._ She drew the book out of its place and quickly looked around to find a place to sit. There was a stool, wooden of course, a few paces from her that seemed to have been placed precisely for her. She put the four volumes down and gave a last glance at the section. She also picked up two more. _The Oblivion Crisis, Battle of Sancre Tor and… The Book of the Dragonborn? And what might be a Dragonborn?_

With enough questions in her mind and all the possible answers right at her fingertips, she opened _Ancestors and the Dunmer_ and began reading avidly. She had some time. _And I read fast. What did my father think I did when I disappeared in the crypts? They never noticed the books disappearing, I guess._

* * *

She heard the sound of boots striking the ladder steps, but she wanted to at least finish the paragraph. The upper room dweller didn't leave her a choice though. 'Good day to you, my lady,' the man said, getting off the last steps of the stairs and noticing her.

Serana raised her head, against her wishes. There was so much more to read, but it seemed she had no choice but to accept the temporary interruption. The man was in his forties by the look of his face, with the first faint signs of wrinkles marking his forehead and the black hair on the temples thinning and getting grayer. _Pale skin, lean frame… High cheekbones. A Breton?_ She looked at him for a moment more, without replying. _The ones that came to the court had more evident elven traits. I guess they have watered down, just like as the lineage of Lamae Bal surely has._ The garments worn by the man were simple but foreign, with a predominance of various shades of blue that was uncommon. He also greeted her in a more erudite way than any other person, which left one possible guess.

'Good day, sir.' She kept her tone composed and polite. He wouldn't be surprised or made suspicious by it as much as the Nords outside. 'Are you Dunard, the librarian?'

The man tittered, casting a glance at the history section. He probably knew his books and had recognized which ones she was holding, and just to be sure of his guess he had looked back at their places. He turned back, still with a grin on his lips. 'Librarian is a word too big for what I do. I mainly deal in tomes and sell them, that doesn't make me anything special. I am an expert, sure, and back in High Rock I specialized in history, particularly in recent history. The Third Era mainly.' He had gained some eagerness while talking, which he lost suddenly as he stopped. 'I apologize,' he said, calming his tone, 'I don't even know why I said that.'

 _I know, though,_ she thought, not breaking eye contact for a single moment. _A historian. He could tell me more. He would like to tell me more. It'll take but a little aid from me, and he will._ He might have not realized that there was something else in play, something that urged him to speak and reveal everything to the stranger sitting in front of him, that despite being hidden radiated such grace and beauty that was hardly possible to keep a clear head. But there was something. She still wasn't doing anything consciously, but the power of a vampire seeps though its skin like blood does from a wound. _There are two ways to go about this. But I could take them both._

'I am very glad you said it, nonetheless,' she said, giving the most disarming smile she could. _You have your mother's lips, you should make good use of them,_ her father had said, when she was still young. From when she was a child, she had learned how powerful of a weapon in can be. It is a means to heal, but an even more effective one to manipulate. 'I'm a traveler, but a lot of my time has been spent in research. I have always been most fascinated with the initial period of the First Era, mainly.' That was an easy angle at which strike. None in the present world would know as much as her about the events she had heard of or witnessed personally. If it would come to it, her cover couldn't be blown. She most counted on something else though. On the energy she felt flowing out of her body and encircling the Breton like tendrils. His eyes clouded, but they started twinkling as well. Burning, with mad desire. She knew that gaze, she had seen it many times before. It was incredible how the vampire could merely let out some of its energy and the world around it was coerced to react to it. In those brief moment, she understood what her father meant when he said that the Blood is pure power.

'The First Era?' Dunard asked, but at that point he wasn't interested in the fact itself. He was looking for a way to have on her the same effect she was having on himself. An impossible feat, but they always tried. 'There is very little reliable information from those times, academically speaking. You must have researched quite a lot.'

'And regarding you?' she asked, ignoring the assumption. 'The Third Era, you said.'

'Oh, yes. Remarkable things have happened. The Oblivion Crisis, the Eruption of Red Mountain. Fascinating. The end of the Septim line in particular has peaked my interest, because of its incredible historical implications. After all, the end of such a dynasty doesn't come without its consequences, as the Great War has shown. Now, with the coming of a new Dragonborn things might change. Although…' he trailed off, a smile twitching his lips. He was about to say something already fabricated, maybe a common opinion that they were sure to share. 'Well, what can a Dark Elf do for Men, right?'

Serana didn't react, even to the last approval seeker. She hadn't had the time to read that tome about that Dragonborn he had mentioned, but she had assumed they were strictly a Nordic thing. Dragons roamed Skyrim in her time, they only rarely ventured on other lands. If they had something resembling a nest, it might have been the Throat of the World. She hadn't seen any flying during their journey, but they were still a part of the picture. They had to be. Otherwise, why would Azrael have a sword that bore the forms of a Dragon? Why would he speak the Dragon Tongue? The Dragons themselves must had taught him. But that seemed beside the point. The fact that both Azrael and this Dragonborn were Dunmer confused her. She had never known the Chimer to have anything to do with them. It was undeniably strange that something related to them was a Nord at all. Not even close. He wasn't even human. He didn't belong to any race worshipping them, even. They held to the Daedra, and they still did according to the book she'd read. She couldn't be too sure, but the traces of the Tribunal seemed long gone from their culture.

As she drifted away from her thoughts, she heard Dunard's worried and quick breaths. 'Are you well?' he asked, trying to take a peek at her eyes.

'Yes, very,' she said, thinking of something that might have helped her. 'I was just thinking, asking myself the same questions you had. Why a Dark Elf? It's not easy to answer.'

'It is not,' the man concurred without a moment's thought. 'But,' he continued, briefly glancing at the ceiling, 'the Aedra sometimes do things that seem done on a whim. The Dragonborn has done many things to put an end to the World Eater, some good and some bad. Had the Gods chosen a Nord, he might have strived to perfection, letting the world sink into chaos in the attempt. The Godkiller did not stop at anything to save this world. He believed that the end justified the means, and for once it proved irrefutably true.' The Breton took a long pause, seemingly musing. Serana could tell anymore if he was trying to impress her or if he had broken away from her bonds enough to be lost in thought. She didn't know and didn't care. She was busy taking in all the things he was saying.

'This Dunmer,' she said, speaking slowly and focusing on not fumbling on her words, 'what is he like?'

'Well…' began the Breton, clearly holding back his surprise. 'Secretive.' He tilted his head, looking for another word. He gave a nod. 'Shadowy.'

'Is he… Cold? Impassive?'

'I suppose he is,' concurred the man. 'His emotional expression in quite lacking, you might say that.'

'A little… Detracting? Sarcastic at times?'

'He has a very clear mind and doesn't forbear from criticism. Occasionally, that takes the form of mocking. He can be rather scornful, yes indeed.'

'Six and a half feet tall? Clad in a black armor, with a cloak and hood that hides his face? A deep, vibrant bass?'

Dunard leaned on the bookcase beside him, a nifty smirk stretching the corners of his lips. This time, Serana wanted to break eye contact. There was too much going on inside and she couldn't know she could take any hit. 'You know him, them,' said the Breton. 'Rather well I might add.'

The high cheekbones gave him a curiously eerie look, adding a complacent element to his expression. The elven in him was making a clearer appearance, and even if that wasn't at all what he was feeling or trying to convey, Serana couldn't help but notice and feel every bit as put down as possible. Only in those moments she realized how much her exterior was really different from her inner world, from her heart and mind. _Azrael told me I'm a head type, but I'm not. I just try to be. It's what my father wanted I'd be. But it has never been me._ Because rationally, she would ignore that imperceptible sign of haughtiness, but she couldn't. She felt something burning her belly, something hotter than sunlight but that was fueled by a completely different energy and burned a completely different part of her. _Hatred. I hate that man. The why is beyond my understanding._

She tried to put together something to explain her curiosity to him and clear the misunderstanding, trying to put aside the burning sensation she felt. Something that would resume the start. A vampire's power binds someone, but when used as she did often drives them somewhere where they're out of control. _I might as well reinforce the grip on him. It loosened when I got distracted._ He had already turned more serious at her short silence, but it wasn't enough. It wasn't assurance he wouldn't do it again at the first opportunity. But something was wrong. _Halt. By the Mace of Souls, halt. What are you thinking? You need him. Don't destroy him._ There were, as always, conflicting forces at work. But not every day she needed someone who she despised so much as she did Dunard in that precise moment. A part of her even felt sorry for him, who stood there taken by her and wondering if she disliked him. His was a paranoia, but in truth, he didn't know the half of it. But for her alone, swallowing that hatred and continuing as if nothing even happened was difficult. It looked impossible, at the moment. She'd manage, but not before the Breton opened his mouth again to ask if it was alright, something that could spark her ire. Her vampiric instincts weren't completely asleep any longer. Who knew what would happen if she flew into a rage? _I need to…_

A weak snap came from behind her, followed by the whispering of the wind. Dunard's face immediately lost all the traces left from the conversation, both the worried stiffness and the lingering grin, and turned composed again. He moved his head as if trying to look, but Serana was quite sure they couldn't see the door from there. The wind's sound went on for just a moment before another faint clang signaled its end. The door had opened and closed, and had stayed opened for a time sufficient for someone to enter. But no one had. No footsteps, no voices.

'Hello?' called Dunard. 'Who is it?' His voice faded and complete silence followed. He cast a glance at Serana, who was extremely pleased with the temporary distraction. The Breton snapped his tongue, as he had done already a couple of times, and sighed. 'Maybe they changed their minds,' he said, walking along the bookcase towards the door. 'I'll be back in a moment.'

Serana felt like drawing a deep breath, but she couldn't. The sound of his steps getting farther away, even if by a coupe of yards, was so relieving to her. The burning sensation in her stomach ceased and a good deal of the tension was immediately discharged. The thought that he would return caused the grip on her throat to remain though. She focused, using that moment of clear head to think of a way to return to her peaceful reading. She didn't want to know anything more from him. _I do control him more firmly, as to push him away…_

Cold, hard metal with the shape of a hand clasped her shoulder and completely encircled it.

'Come.' The voice was deep and vibrant. She knew it, she would have recognized it anywhere. She had just described it to Dunard, and there she heard it again. She managed to turn around, a little and strange hope in her heart, but she was faced with what her mind had told her. A black void, without face. The voice that conjured his very image and simultaneously sounded utterly disembodied from any material form.

'Now?' she whispered. A completely different train of thought had wondered why he had come. It wasn't Noon yet. _Or is it?_

'Hello?' Dunard's voice rang. 'Who was it?' He was probably still trying to guess who had tried to enter. And probably, in his mind, he was trying to find the one responsible of attempting to interrupt his chat.

Serana's attention didn't stay with the Breton for too long. Soon enough it came back to Azrael. 'Time flows in strange ways,' he said, his voice marked by the ironic note that sometimes hardened into the sarcastic one she had also described to Dunard. _Maybe I do know him, and I just don't realize it._ 'As soon as that man comes back, you follow me on the other side of the bookcase,' he continued, his voice cold as ice, just as she had described to Dunard. 'Shadowmere waits behind the building.'

* * *

A/N: Here we are, after a long while. A long chapter, but an important one. A lot of things happening both in the background and the foreground. There was a little bit of both Serana and Azrael here, exploring different sides of them. Serana's slightly paranoid, heavily ambivalent side alongside her crafty one, and a return of Azrael's scheming and analytical vein, along the lines of the conversation with Enthir in _A New Threat Looms._ There would be a lot of things to say, but that would be spoiling you fun of understanding everything going on.

The usual quick word about the reviews. To ArtemisxHolly, I can say it is much appreciated to hear from someone on the other side of the barricade, I was sure there would be; To Quintus Sertorius, I can say it is indeed already planned. You seem to have some high expectations, which I'll do my best to live up to. But, regardless, hold me to them. I like a challenge.

See you soon, dear readers.


	10. Chapter IX: Embrace Death

A/N: For those who want to start from where they left off on the preview, simply search "drifting back into the current" in the page and continue from there.

* * *

Chapter IX: _Embrace Death_

The washing of the oars in the thick sea water were of a hypnotizing regularity. A little more than a second went by before from their emergence to the plunging and the time they spent underwater was roughly the same. Two splashes, following another two and yet another two. The rhythmic movement was also fixing that cadence into her mind. She supposed that, hadn't it been for the preternatural strength allowing her to row so intensely, the fatigue would also come and go at the same pace. And if the effort required had been bigger, the mind might have been numbed completely by the tiredness. _If I were a mortal, I wouldn't have the strength to think right now._

The boat moved against the wind, ramming the waves one after the other as they collided with the thin keel of the tender. They all split in two, grazing the sides of the small boat and sometimes pouring some water in. There weren't any holes and the wood was in good conditions, which was a clear enough sign of regular use. It was amazing how they had managed to keep those in relatively good conditions. Of course, none of the wood she saw was the one used for the original construction, but the boat itself was one of the same old tenders kept to transport things and people from the castle to the shores. They only had a pair of oars and no mast for a sail. She had suggested to create one on the spot, but Azrael reminded her of the wind. It was blowing strongly from the open sea, in the opposite direction. The sail needed to use adverse wind was too complex to build and couldn't, in no way, be improvised.

'You take the helm, I'm taking the oars…' he had said, but the way he had trailed off had left an imprint on her mind that would fade away only with an enormous effort. He had turned towards her and locked eyes with her for a moment. By now she knew when he was looking at her in the eyes. She felt the shiver down her spine as he gazed. 'Actually, we will do the opposite.' A definite decision. Of course it was. The normal thing was that the man would do the task that required the most strength, but tradition didn't look like his strong suit. Logic was, though. Serana was the strongest between the two of them, she wouldn't tire and she would have brought both of them to the castle in one piece quicker than he ever could.

Being there rowing while he sat calmly at the end of the tender with the helm in his hand, doing nothing except for holding the rudder in his hand and keeping it in place, was a very strange situation for her to be in. It felt so wrong and so painfully unusual than she almost felt uneasy, but if there was something on which Azrael could never be attacked was his reasoning. He ad his own perspective, which was radical and extreme in its creativity and open-mindedness. He challenged the very opinion that open-mindedness was something completely good and without fault. It had its faults. To people holding to certain habits, it went from being startling to being traumatizing. But, as far as rationality was concerned, there was nothing to fight him on. There wasn't a single angle at which she could approach the problem to criticize his decision. _But as long as I have my breath, I can maybe try to approach this at another angle. I can't attack his decision, but the concept behind it._

She didn't do it out of annoyance, but something else. Probably curiosity, or perhaps for the simple search of conversation. During those days of travel, the silence was probably the thing that had burdened her the most. She almost envied Azrael's complete comfort in silence. Despite the mixed feelings she still had about the stop in Dragon Bridge, she couldn't deny that she felt eager after spending some time with other people. In absence of others, Azrael was the only person she could talk to, and they had silently found a sort of rule. They could talk, that was her win, but never about light or useless topics, which was his.

The term useless seemed to come up quite a lot in her thoughts regarding him. He was one for useful things. He filtered everything wondering if it worked, while she approached most things asking herself if it would be fine for everyone. A utilitarian view versus a conciliating one. She had encountered some people in the past that were like this, but he brought the concept to a whole new level. Nothing was safe from the razor-thin lucidity he cast over everything. She considered it presumptions, if not arrogant. He didn't, or didn't care. He was extremely confident in his means, and above all his own mind.

'Azrael,' she said, raising her head and looking towards him. At one point he would lock eyes with her, but for now he was looking away. 'Back in Dragon Bridge, I read about the Dunmer. How they came to be and how they live. But if you truly are one, then I can't really understand your distance from your roots. You're completely different from the people I read of in those books.'

He was truly a Dunmer, there were no two ways about it. The overlap between him and the Dragonborn proved it without any possibility of failure, but she wondered why and how he had come to stray so far from the path of his people and his Ancestors. He ad reached a point where he didn't seem to belong to them anymore. _He doesn't seem to belong anywhere at all, honestly,_ she thought, thinking about how she had transformed her thoughts into words. _The concept of belonging is absent from his description. He doesn't belong to anything or anywhere that I know. I don't even understand where he became like this._ Nobody comes from nothing, but then again he challenged even that. He truly didn't belong anywhere she knew.

'The reasons are few, but complex,' he said, slowly.

He didn't turn her way. She took it as a good sign. It meant he was thinking about it. She expected to hit a soft spot, but that was unexpected. Of course, there was always the possibility he'd just tell her he didn't want to talk about it, or worse still he would redirect the question her way. She had come to realized how well he actually knew her. She held on to that thought, because there was nothing wrong with it, but that was the way it looked. She'd come back to it later. For the time being, she merely moved her gaze away. She ad no proof it worked with him, but most people as secluded as he was typically disliked pressure more than anything. She suspected it worked on him, but couldn't be too sure. You could never be too sure when dealing with him, because of his radically different thought patterns.

'I didn't fit,' he continued, after a couple of seconds. 'For my whole life, I've felt adrift. It seemed to me nowhere in this world would welcome me. Not even my own kin.' She expected sorrow and suffering to accompany those words, but to her surprise she heard a distant note of something different. Only forbearance and reflection. 'Everyone approaches the world in a different way, and I felt I needed to build my own sanctuary before rejoining others. Only recently I have realized that there is no such thing as a safe haven in this world. When I was young, I felt like I needed something more to approach tradition. And when I woke up from my sleep I was beyond tradition. The values of my people help them shape themselves into something they learn to appreciate. I have done that on my own. I have done what everyone of my blood siblings do, but in my own way.'

'But why?' She still had her doubts. Doubts were hard for her to dismiss. 'Everyone around you followed them, why didn't you?' _Where did you find the strength and the will to stray so far from others?_ was what she should and truly wanted to ask, but she couldn't bring herself to do it. The rationale was that she feared his answer, but in truth she didn't want to admit her weakness. 'I just can't understand why, of all nations, you were born in the least likely to favor freedom of thought.'

'That's precisely why,' he said, and the emotionless note took a cryptic vibe for a moment. 'What other culture could?' This time he turned towards her, locking her eyes into his in a grip of an unknown kind of power. 'Only us. The fire-borne, but cold-blooded Dunmer. We like to think of ourselves as the truest of traditionalists, but look at our history. What mark do we bear?'

She was taken aback. She didn't expect a question coming. She might have, but wasn't. 'I don't know… You're marked as secluded, mainly because of the distrust you show others. You're different. Not…' she hesitated, fumbling over her words a little. She would have liked to have more mouths than just one, to say everything that went through her mind. 'Yours isn't the superiority you impose onto others, like you Altmer cousins. You keep to yourselves and don't meddle in others' affairs, as long as they don't meddle in yours.'

'We bear the mark of the rebel,' Azrael said, catching the lapse between two phrases to intervene. She ha more to say, and didn't guess what he was thinking. Still, getting him talking again was her goal, which she had achieved. She listened intent. 'We escaped the Summerset Isles, we began worshipping the Daedra instead of the Aedra, three of us defied a Lady of Oblivion herself. They lost, but that's beyond, if not pivotal, to the point.' In that brief talk, he had shown a trait typical of his people, for a change. Pride. The pride to be born a Dunmer. It was the Chimer's before them, and it had been passed on. he was proud of being born a Dark Elf, even if he hadn't lived as one.. 'We hold to tradition,' he said, and that was the conclusion, 'to keep our rebellious minds in check.'

 _And when it's not enough, people like Sotha Sil, Vivec and yourself come to walk this plane._ She couldn't know what he had truly done. However, from what the bookkeeper had told her, she knew it was something titanic. Even the name, Dragonborn, involved the Dragons. And when they were involved, it was something big. Those beasts left the other races alone, mostly, but the fights that ensued between two of their kind were something spectacular. They could last for hours, and for the entire timespan fire and ice thundered in the sky. In fact, now that she remembered she could understand better what Azrael had done in the cave. He had used the language of Dragons to replicate the magic they used, if it could be considered magic at all. The thing was, she had never known anyone that wasn't a Dragon to be able to use that power. Not even the Nords, who revered Alduin as their deity. For a Chimer to have that power, something big must had happened.

Upon dropping that train of thought, she noticed that the waves had become somewhat weaker. They didn't hit the tender as hard and no more water spilled inside. The split waves ran just under the reinforced sides of the little boat and, when reforming after its passage, they were lower than they were before they started their conversation. She looked at Azrael, who was keenly looking at a higher spot behind her back. Merely seeing him made her think about his examinations of nearly everything they came in contact with. She knew the individual pieces, mainly what she told her, but she had learned to use those little fragments of his mind structure to her advantage. For instance, she thought about the waves. The waves form thanks to the wind. One option was that the wind had lost some strength. The sky was still grey with clouds, but she noticed something. _The gale… It's not hitting my back anymore._

'Has the wind gone down?' she asked, not understanding where Azrael was looking that seemed so interesting. It could have been just a bird or a particular interesting frame formed by the clouds, but it looked something more real. _He's observing, not imagining._

'No,' he said, calmly. 'If anything, it has increased.'

She was confused for a moment. Just as she thought she had got it right, she had made a mistake. But how could that be? 'But I don't feel anything coming from behind me anymore.' It was interesting to think that, had he been someone else, she would have laughed and mocked him. If she was in the wrong, her mistake could have been the basis for a ironic joke. Not with him, though. She just waited for an answer.

He briefly shifted his head in her direction. 'Turn around,' he said, shifting again.

She drew the oars inside the tender and laid them beside her to prevent them from being carried into the water by the waves. Casting a last glance his way, trying to deduce something she was currently missing, she grabbed the side of the boat and turned around. She stopped so suddenly she felt as though she had been turned to ice on the spot.

Twenty meters ahead of the boat's head, a rocky shore emerged and reentered the water at the rhythm of the weak waves. There was a wooden wharf build on one of the more even rocks, emerging from the water by a foot and with a rope knotted to one of its sticks. Its end had collapsed into the sea. Not very far from said shore, there was a stone tower that was sixty feet high at the very least. _The Watchtower._ Continuing from there, a roadway build with stone slabs led up the hill, forming an arch that loomed over an expanse of black sand. On the sides of the island, as far as her eyes could see, the waters broke against the black jagged coastline. The higher waves frothed as they shattered and the foam hit the walls of the colossal fortress standing atop of the island.

Serana looked up. The stone road led to a portal, the entrance to the ancient stronghold overlooking the sea. Its walls were build with a dark stone, dark as slate, that with water dripping from it looked lucid, casting ghastly reflections of the grim light cast on its surface. The towers rose high up, splitting the sky with their massive size and towering height. One of them, the one that stood the furthest back, was crooked and looked like it could crumbled into the water at any moment. The rest of the shapes were shrouded by a rising mist, coiling around the castle and rising into the sky. It rose from the walls, like smoke from a fire, and gave the place an even gloomier appearance.

 _Castle Volkihar, behold,_ she thought, once again pushing the humor in as a shield. _My home, but perhaps because it's the only one I ever had._ The very thing she had suspected might happened was occurring with a precision she herself found astounding. For all that time, she had mused over how the arrival home would clear her head and give her some peace, but something had told her repeatedly that it wouldn't. _Home brings as many assurances as it does insecurities. I'll be better there because someone will look after me, but I'll not feel any different._ She was receiving proof of those words precisely in that moment.

She had forgotten about anything she had in mind just before. The shock brought by the sudden apparition of the castle had wiped away everything and brought new worries and thoughts to her mind. She didn't care about the wind, or the waves, or how stupid she must have looked in Azrael's eyes for not noticing the titanic things standing right behind her. Nothing of that remained. Instead, the doubt of returning there, the fear of what might happen and the hundreds of simultaneous playing of the reunion with her parents going on inside her head. _No one of those will happen. Not even one,_ she told herself, but her imagination simply acknowledged it and kept creating new ones.

She as looking towards the gates, and those alone were filling her head with memories. The last time she had seen those, she was fleeing away along with her mother. She hadn't had the time to look at them, because they were in such a hurry. She had always found the carving on the portals very interesting, but that once there was no time. They had to flee, go as far away from Harkon as possible. The mere fact that she was walking in again, possibly wiping away years of her mothers work to keep her away from her father, gave her a headache. She saw no other way to catch up to the events, but it was risky. What if none of them was there, waiting for her? What if only her father was there? What if her mother had died?

'Serana.' Azrael's voice was calm and dethatched, but the snap into reality she felt was so strong it barely left her the presence required to pay attention to his words. 'Row. We're drifting back into the current.'

She quickly picked up the oars again and recommenced what was an all too familiar movement by that point. The tender stopped gliding backwards, floating idly, and after a couple of splashes made by the strong rows it started moving forward once again. Slowly at first, then more swiftly. She looked down, at her own feet, but the image of the castle was imprinted in her view, as if drawn with black ink over her eyes. It wouldn't go away. On the fourth circular movement of her hands, the motion started to become automatic once again, and once again she drifted into fearful thinking.

She heard a noise and raised her head. Azrael had gotten up from the rear of the boat and had moved to its center, closer to her. He was looking beyond her, most probably at the wooden wharf. He leaned out, but the boat immediately followed and threatened to overturn. Serana gripped the oars tighter and felt the urge to cry something, warning him to be more careful. She repressed the impulse, noticing how much of a mindless reaction it was, rather than the rational thought she had always believed it to be. Azrael backed away, glancing around slowly and following a pattern not clear to her. The black void hiding his face turned towards the wharf once more, and this time he raised a hand.

A bleeding wound opened in the veil separating Aetherius and their plane. Magicka seeped from it, she could feel it. A dusty auburn light flashed in his hand and he pointed it forward immediately after. The magicka didn't stop flowing, and continued to empower the incantation. She couldn't see anything of what the spell was doing, but she heard something wallowing. After two more plops, the wet rope attached to the quay appeared in front of her. The auburn light extinguished rapidly and the rift in Aetherius closed just as quickly while Azrael made a very quick movement, grabbing the line with both hands.

'Help me,' he told her, giving the rope a strong pull and dragging the boat closer to the wharf. He then moved one hand in front of the other, tugging the line.

She drew the oars out of the water and placed them inside of the tender, where she had put them already to look at the castle. Rising to her feet, she felt if the boat would turn on itself. It wouldn't. A long while had gone past since her last feeding, almost a whole week, and all the water in her body had dried. The thing that weights the most in a body, she learned by experience, was the water it contained. So far from feeding and with her relatively light armor on herself, she weighted very little. Little enough that the boat didn't overturn when instead it could have under Azrael's weight.

She stepped forward carefully, putting her foot down against the boat's side and hopping to a crouching position, from which she could easily grab and pull the rope. The other effect of being a week's away since her last feeding was that her primeval instinct were not only stronger than ever, but clearly perceivable even when not needed. Her strength, usually coming to her aid when required, seemed to always linger in her limbs. It was a good sensation, but it was also really tiring. Using it for something felt extremely good. Her vampiric swiftness too was constantly trying to emerge. Thanks to that, she found it really easy to put her hands in between Azrael's and start to tug the line.

One pull from her managed to draw the boat over a distance he would achieve in five or more seconds of struggling with the current and the rope. He didn't say a thing. One of her last contacts in the mortal world before she was locked away continually repeated how he would never get tired of noticing how insanely strong she was. She was flattered by that, but after a while it had become tiring. Azrael didn't comment though. He was completely unsentimental about her capabilities, as well as all her other vampiric abilities. For the first few days, she considered he was acting tough, but the more she spent time with him the more that seemed like a hurried misconception. He truly was unsentimental, if not utterly unfeeling. That was the question, probably. To what extent he noticed things and to what he didn't externally react to them. She couldn't rightfully deny that she had never tried to impress him, and if not for her knowledge of his cold demeanor she would have been sorely disappointed by his lack of appreciation. Again, that came down to the emotional reactions she was used to get from people.

Many times she wondered, or had caught herself wondering, if he was as unemotional about her as he was for most other things in the world. Her story, her appearance, her character. Her story alone, one she still couldn't fully believe even though it had happened to her, was quite something. She had no idea of what opinion, if any, he had of her. And that scared her terribly. _Where do we stand, you and me?_

In her thinking, she had given free reign to her strength. She had started pulling the line way faster than Azrael could ever do. When she came to it, she noticed he was retracting his hands very quickly to avoid slowing her down. _Efficient as ever,_ she said to herself, noticing it, but while noticing it, she also became more aware of what was going on around her. In sensing the hands moving, she felt something else around her, coming from her right. It was him, but she couldn't tell what it was for a moment. It seeped from him. Energy of some kind, both hurtful and pleasurable. Both material and immaterial.

She understood the material part of it fairly quickly. They were close enough and the air was cold enough for her to feel the heat of his body seeping though the armor. It wasn't the most welcome of feelings while her bloodthirst was growing, but concept of someone giving off heat was somewhat poetic. _Of course, he would say that the Chimer and the Dunmer after them naturally produced more heat than others… He's the least romantic person I've known, now that I think of it._ He made everything into a science, and every science into a set of opinions that he could systematically annihilate with just a moment to think about it. But, back to that strange energy he was irradiating, there was something that only her instinctual core could perceive, and still wasn't too clear. The mere vicinity was upsetting her a little, and she couldn't figure if in a positive or negative way. It was just making it difficult for her to keep focused.

Not that she needed to keep her focus for a long time, since before she could fully return to the present moment the tender's side hit one of the hidden sticks making up the submerged part of the wharf. The boat shook slightly, but Azrael, who had kept a clearer mind, grabbed the pole and drew the boat forward enough for him to reach one of the poles still out of the water. Serana moved back towards the head of the tender, preparing to get down and drag the boat onto dry land while the Dunmer tied the wet line back around the stick, where it was supposed to be. Normally, there wouldn't be the need to do it but storms frequently hit the island. That wouldn't have been the first rope to come loose and the first boat to wreck somewhere in the frigid waters of the Northern Coast. He seemed to have understood it.

Serana jumped off the onto the wharf and crouched, grabbing the side of the boat with both hands and pulling it closer to the rocks, while Azrael finished tying the line. She saw him grab the quay's flat wooden plank and drag himself up as she hauled the tender onto the rocks. 'We arrived quite quickly, didn't we?' she said, scrubbing away the brackishness that had encrusted on her breastplate.

'For me,' Azrael said, looking at his left gauntlet and grazing it with his other hand. He was trying to take it off. 'You could have simply flied here.'

She was still scratching away the salt and examining the rest of her armor, but as soon as she understood what he had just said she jarred to a halt. Her hands rested for a few moments on her armor without moving, her mind racing so fast it was taking away every bit of energy she had. _He shouldn't know. He hasn't seen anyone transform, unless it was before me. Maybe Lokil… No._ The main problem was another, however. _Has he said that just because, or is that meant to be a warning?_ He had done something like this before intentionally, as in leaking information to produce a certain reaction in her. She had tried once to ask him if he had done it to see the consequences on her or for the sake of sharing the knowledge, and of course, she had gotten no answer. It was better not to ask.

But she could ask something else. 'How…' She fumbled on her words. _A vampire afraid of a mortal… Near her own lair. A sign of the times, maybe._ Or the fact that said mortal was less ordinary than the common meaning of that word implied, but that was beyond the point. 'How do you know?'

The Dunmer remained silent. But it wasn't one of his usual silences. He slowed his every movement and slowly removed the gauntlet, shifting his head enough for her to guess he was looking at her sideways. 'Nevermind,' he said, dismissively but with subtle irony, his motions resuming to their normal speed. 'I haven't told you that story.'

'What story?'

'One that isn't for today,' he cleared out. His forearm and hand were exposed now, and he was gazing at his index and middle finger.

Serana soon lost interest for what he was doing by itself, which wasn't that interesting, and as soon as she did she noticed something that was almost too obvious to be noticed immediately. She had read of the Dark Elves having grey skin, but it was her first time laying eyes on it. Furthermore, it was the first bit of Azrael's skin she had seen since they met, which was quite a while now. She always did judge a little by appearance, but it had never been possible with him. Nor was it now, after all it was only his hand. Her sight allowed to see clearly despite the distance and the fine mist between them.

The forearm itself was vigorous. Not too big, because there didn't seem to be a bit of flesh on it. It was all fiber and sinew. Its very shape coincided with the one of the muscle. _Well…_ she thought, _if he always uses the sword like he's done at Dimhollow, the wristwork would be enough._ The wrist and his hand looked strong too, but she knew that. He had shown it in plenty of occasions. Although, pretty much every warrior using the blade in the way he did would have an arm built like that. The interesting thing, the unusual thing, was the color of the skin. When she had read of the grey color of the Dark Elves' skin, she expected a greyish pink or just a darker color. Like the skin of the Altmer, which in spite of being referred to as yellow isn't actually vividly so. His was. It was the same hue of ash. Completely colorless.

'Are all the Dunmer of that exact same color?' she asked, full of wonder. She felt like a child for a moment.

'No,' he answered, grazing his middle finger with the end of the other gauntlet's index finger. 'Most of my kin have a darker tonality. I've always been quite pale.' He raised his bare hand, saying nothing but acting as if there was something else. Serana noticed the exposed middle finger was wounded. A recent injury, maybe a week or so, which he had reopened it with the gauntlet's sharp part. A drop of blood was creeping down his finger. His head rose. 'Come closer.'

She involuntarily stepped backward. 'I hope you're not asking me to—'

'Precisely that,' he cut her off, keeping his wounded hand close to his chest and looked at her. She could feel his gaze, hard as stone. 'It will only be a moment,' he added, shifting to a more, but still very far from, soothing tone.

'A moment?' she asked. The mere scent of the blood was marking her temples pulse and her head spin. The outlines of the objects around her were fading and the color becoming more vivid. She had failed to realize that until that very moment, but she was incredibly thirsty. _A week has passed_. 'Do you have any idea what will happen once I drink just a drop?' she pressed on, but she was venting and externalizing her fears more than informing him of anything. 'I could lose control, jump to your neck and drink the rest of your blood dry. Cover that injury…' Her voice failed her, as she felt a sting coming from her throat. 'The scent of blood's affecting me.'

'You won't lose control,' he said, his tone slightly cryptic. He didn't lower his hand. 'If everything goes correctly, you won't want to taste it again. If not, some fire will do.' He bent his head to the left. 'Come closer.'

He had said those same words when he had summoned her before, and although she couldn't explain why, that proved effective. Her mind ceased its resistance, and as a result, her instincts diminished in strength all of a sudden. It was maybe true that the greatest efforts were the battles fought between the instinctual core and the disciplined part of her mind, and not her instincts alone. If the spinning head and the tingling at the end of her digits did continue, she felt it less. Lowering her head, she walked towards him, who looked at her at every step. She looked at him and somehow failed to put him in the situation wholly. The dark sky behind him was interrupted by his darker, almost black figure. _He is something from the future, in a sense,_ she thought, in an attempt to justify her feeling, _I'm probably still living four thousand years ago, and he is my only link. That's why he seems to out of place, like an outsider._ The black void hiding his face seemed more sinister than ever before. As she got closer, she actually felt a paralyzing fear gripping her limbs.

She kept moving nonetheless. She felt many things, too many it seemed to her, but she always revealed very little. In her younger years, before understanding how to build her own imagine, she had come off as passionate but also quite suspicious and skeptic, sometimes indifferent. The reality of it was that she hid her inner world from the world. Not to the extent that Azrael did, but still. There was a point of similarity. In that particular moment, for instance, she felt inferior, but nobody in the world other than a very few people wound have ever noticed. For better or worse, Azrael probably counted among the ones who could. He seemed to play around with the aura that followed him, which was remarkably strong. Somehow, he seemed to be so aware of his options in the case of conflict that one didn't simply bother to engage in that conflict. It was the case for her as well. She was stronger, faster and without a doubt more quick-minded than he could ever be, if a fight were to break out. A false move on his part and he would be dead, and she could have returned to her father alone and undisturbed. But she didn't want to play with fire. _I have my plan, but every plan includes the enemy's predicted reaction. How will you react, Azrael? I don't know. I can't know._ His apparent invincibility lied partly, if not wholly, in his unpredictability.

 _What does he want from me now, for a start?_ she wondered. She was close, enough for her to smell his blood very clearly. Azrael scratched the wound with one of the other hand's armored fingers, leaving a single drop of blood on the talon-like extension of the gauntlet. He moved that finger towards her, while silently pointing with the other hand's index at her own hand. She raised it, and he softly touched her palm, leaving that drop of blood on it. She looked up. _What now?_ was the question her eyes were asking mutely. Did he want her to drink it? She didn't know if she wanted to. That single droplet emitted a strange scent. One that was piercing and venomous, and she asked how that was even possible. Something was starting to link in her mind, trying and partially succeeding to understand certain things that had remained a mystery to her until that very moment. But for the time being, only she existed. And Azrael's commanding authority alongside her.

'Taste it,' he said.

She wanted to ask, but didn't want to. Probably, she simply didn't have the strength to do it. The simpler way out of it was doing as he said, and she didn't see him betraying her when so close to their destination. _Maybe now that I led him here he might want to rid himself or me… No, no, why are you even thinking about it?_ But despite her silencing every such thought, they kept coming back with even more force than before, hammering on her mind constantly, as if the world didn't had enough problems on its own. She looked towards the black void in the Dunmer's face and brought her palm to her mouth, feeling her eyes locked in his invisible ones.

She pressed her lips against the drop, locking every muscle up tight and trying to keep every coming from her feral side in check. He seemed quite sure of himself, but she couldn't know how her body would react to a dose so small. She could have hungered more, lost control over herself and demanded more. She planned to lick it away with her tongue and ingest it as quickly as possible, avoiding the inevitable surge of power that would have followed. She was so ready to take the hit that she didn't spot the other threat in time.

The red, warm liquid didn't taste at all like blood. It didn't have the sapid, metallic taste of life blood. It did have the strange flavor of elven blood, a difference that didn't really have a correspondent on a mortal's palate, but something else was shadowing and deleting pretty much every trace of that savor from it. It was sharp, acrid taste that soured her lips and wiped away every other thing she felt in her mouth, almost as if it had been cauterized. She realized something. _It's not that every other flavor has disappeared, but this thing has render me unable to sense anything._ The acrid tang kept burning away, until it grew scorching and painful. She thought her lips were catching fire.

She spit what she could, coughing so hard she thought her lifeless bowels would come out of her belly. _This is like what it felt to vomit,_ she remembered. _The vampiric essence tried to rid itself of the blood, like…_ Something sparkled, and she finally completed the first piece of the puzzle. The one that had been tormenting her with its incompletion ever since they had escaped the cave. _Like what happened to the bald vampire._ The imaged flashed all too clearly in front of her, and she saw again the quarter-breed drinking its fill from Azrael's throat, staggering back and coughing, expelling all the ingested fluid on the floor as its body seemed to deteriorate and his strength to fade. The way the blood had dripped out of his mouth, without him being able to swallow it down. _If he felt the same thing I felt, but having drank several mouthfuls of it, I'd say he handled it quite well._ As usual, the humor pushed away the gloomy terror taking hold.

'What…' she trailed off, coughing again. The motion itself had little sense, because she hadn't breathed any air she could expel. That went to show how unnatural the thing that just happened was.

'Keep it together.' She was looking away, but she felt Azrael's armored hands slowly grasping her shoulder and keeping it straight. 'It'll soon pass.'

She started back at him, turning her head around and conscious that her eyes were wide with surprise and fear. She felt like quaking, but it wasn't a way the vampire expresses its fear. 'Azrael…' she muttered, still feeling the acrid taste in her mouth. 'What did you…?'

'In due course,' he said, using her pause to interrupt her. 'Are you well?'

'Slightly better might be the right words.'

He let go of her shoulder. He had slid the gauntlet right back when she was coughing, or even before while she was still nearing her palm to her mouth. 'Let's go.'

She followed, but she was somewhere else with her head. Azrael walked along the rocks, towards the dry sand and the stone bridge leaning up to the castle's entrance. She followed him, distractedly, with the real images of the drizzle, the mist rising from the castle black walls and the dim sky flashing and melding with her memories. The ones so close to her awakening were clear and vivid, rendered even more clear by the strong charge of fear and feeling of disorientation that was tied to them. _He hadn't drank any potion, or at least not something that acted on short periods of time. It's him, his blood is venomous._ She had guessed by looking at the bald quarter-breed, in the cavern, a week back. That vampire coughing and spitting blood all around. _As if his body was rejecting it_ , she remembered herself thinking, and it seemed to be turning out that she had been right after all.

Azrael stepped first on the stone bridge, and she followed. _Great, mystery solved. But I don't see him solving a mystery for me, so why has he done that? Even giving me the clues to do it would be out of character._ It was unbelievable, she herself couldn't think of herself making that reasoning, but she could assume with relative confidence that what Azrael had done had been done for an ulterior motive. She could safely assume he was playing her. _At what game, though? That's what I'm curious about._ She tried to understand, squeeze out everything she could from her stormy mind. _He probably wanted me to test something… Honestly, there's little other reason that could explain this._ He clearly, or somewhat clearly, knew about the effect his lifeblood had on vampires. That could be discarded. Maybe he had asked her about the distance of the bald vampire from the blood patron to see if that trick worked on purebloods as well. _Or maybe…_

Her mind halted for a moment, in a single spark of absolute wonder and surprise. She cast a glance at Azrael's back, walking ahead of her and making strides that were so long she needed to walk faster than normal to keep up with him. _He bends the world around him. He molds it, controls it and ultimately causes it to stay still or to destroy itself from within._ But aside from that, what truly impressed her was the effect that he was sorting on her. _One week with him and I'm thinking exactly like him. I'm lost speculating, planning, deciphering, decrypting. I'm probably getting a glimpse of what's like being him. But that,_ she thought, casting another glance in his direction, _is an enormous shortfall. I don't know the what and the why, but I know the how now._ The very formulation of that thought, the way she had given it shape and the way she'd have worded it had she been forced to say it out loud, were more his than hers. She felt his very his way of thinking and seeing changing her. His perception and viewpoint, a utilitarian and pragmatic perspective, gave her a hint. _What if what he said is really true, that everything is a weapon if held the right way? What I have on my hands is a great knowledge, a knowledge I might use to my own end._ In his, and his own, strategic and calculating way of behaving.

And something sparked. _You wanted to scare me, did you not?_ Did you not. She'd have said: _Didn't you?_ But she thought: _Did you not?_ It was the way he'd have said it.

They were halfway along the bridge. The sound of their steps was drowned in the hissing howl of the wind hitting and blowing along the castle walls. The gusts varied in intensity, causing the noise to go up and down erratically, sometimes taking on higher timbres and sometimes lower ones, condensing into a haunting resonance. A harrowing wail. Once every few moments, the splash of the waves shattering against the rock resounded alongside, creating a steady cadence in conjunction with the gale. She remembered times when she was young and the castle would echo with such sounds, conjuring grim thoughts about evil things. _The mind of children…_ she thought, feeling a grin almost making its way on her lips. Back then, she dreaded the day evil things might have overcome and taken control of the place. Only a few years later something akin to those evil things had indeed taken hold of the place, but from within. That place wasn't safe, not for her and for anyone. She knew Azrael was planning something, and she knew a little bit of how he planned now. He worked on the context, on the sidelines, on the frame of the situation. If he had an idea of what could happen inside, then what he did could have been immensely dangerous. If he hadn't, that everything would be immensely dangerous all the same, but for him alone.

She had to do something, but not in that moment. She knew too little. She'd have waited, but not idly. 'Hey,' she called, halting to a stop. 'Before we go in there…'

Azrael moved another step forward, but then he turned around. He readjusted the cloak with one hand before directing the hidden face at her. No need for words.

She pondered her words. They were certainly not a lie, but they were probably not the truth, either. 'I wanted to thank you for… well, for bringing me this far.' Several courtesies came to her mind and almost flowed right on her tongue, but she stopped them in time. None of those meant anything and they would have all been detrimental. 'After we get in there however, I'm going to go my own way for a while.'

'Why don't take the lead instead?'

The moment of surprise clearly showed on her face. There wasn't any blood left in the vessels to make her blush or bleach, but the muscles worked and they contracted at the same moment. 'Why…' She decided to redirect. 'I didn't even think you'd allow me,' she said with a grin.

Before saying a word, be turned halfway in the gate's direction and gestured at the front gate. 'The world I know ends on that doorstep. I value knowledge when making decisions, and I have none of what lies beyond that threshold.'

 _Rational as ever, of course,_ she thought while nodding automatically and keeping the smile on her lips. It wasn't forced, but while it looked like a normal grin it was a nervous one mainly. 'You certainly live up to that principle,' she said, trying to force her way into something by using that simple thing he had told about himself. It was a rare occasion, almost non-existent, and it was too good to pass on. There were moments when he could look like an arrogant narcissist, but he lacked the main characteristic of those belonging to that group, which is never talking about anything else than themselves. 'You don't look like a scholar, but you know enough to be called one,' she continued.

'Scholars live to know, while I know to live. It's quite different.' He bent his head toward the gate, but that was all. 'After you.'

She gave him a nod, a slightly playful one, and she forged onward. She was amazed by how the whole situation had changed. She had noticed it shifting slowly, bit by bit, during the conversation, but his last two words had changed it completely. _It's arguable that I had never understood how much he shapes the space around him until now,_ she mused. It was most strange, but the air felt different ever since he had told her to take the lead. She didn't feel his presence the same way anymore. In his own mind, he had changed his perception. He had stepped down from the role of forerunner to the one of protector. The cold feeling he always managed to irradiate had changed too. When before she felt bound, controlled, with him as the central figure standing over her and having complete power over anything around, she now felt observed rather than coerced. _It's no wonder Laegiine and her partners, whoever they might be, value him as a leader._ At the same time, the feeling she had was reshaping. It went from a fear of disobeying to a sense of charge. Whether before he compelled her to follow his every order, he now looked after her. Just in case she did anything stupid. It was a completely different kind of power, but he was exactly the same person. The tone hadn't changed. It was as if his mind alone shaped the world. _How do you even do that? Many would give everything they have for something like that._ She knew they would have. Although only indirectly related, her father might be counted among the ones who did give everything he held dear. His own family, among other things.

Before the gates, there was also the grated metal threshold. Trying to get rid of the sea of thoughts clouding her mind, she tried to remember everything that could help. her. They kept a watchman out usually, but only a thrall, never a vampire. In times past, some unlucky merchant would shipwreck on those shores and they couldn't afford to keep someone who was either a hooded brute or visibly a vampire standing guard. They needed someone unassuming. The only problem with that was that Isteir, the last guardian she'd seen, had probably died more than four thousand years ago. It was very difficult to influence another vampire's thrall, but there was a specific circumstance in which none of that would have been necessary. _Now that my enigmatic redeemer has turned into an enigmatic keeper as well,_ she thought, stinging hard at her own feeling of wonder by undermining the situation with her wit, _I have someone to take counsel from. I guess I'm proper princess now. I even have an advisor. A not quite trusted one, but still._

'A couple of days ago, in the Reach,' she said, turning around, 'you told me my father could be expecting me.' She had taken that information for granted, since there was no way to verify it, and she had no idea of what was its background. Namely, why Azrael had mentioned that. On a side note, he had never explained to her why the bald vampire could be on her trail. That was superfluous, however.

'He is,' he said, looking forward, away from her face. There was a nearly imperceivable irony hidden in the emotionless tone. 'So keenly that the man might even recognize you.'

She turned immediately, noticing once again how differently she perceived him. She felt him less, in a way, which however allowed him to not project his thoughts so strongly. He was in a position to immerse himself in reasoning without her noticing. Maybe it was his normal attitude when concocting even bigger plans than the ones she knew of. That thought was violently cut down by the image her eyes brought to her. That of an elderly man with white hair in an armor made of leather. He was thin and underfed, the face lost and the gaze absent.

She slowed to a halt, feeling Azrael stopped very close to her. His vicinity continued to give her the mixed feelings of being warm and cold, safe and threatened. She tried to ignore it as she looked at the new watchman, presumably one captured half a century ago or so, when he was still in his prime. Now he was only good as long as he could be kept standing, after which he would have probably been thrown into the sea. _He's too old to produce tasteful blood any longer,_ she reasoned, amazed at how such a gruesome thought could come so natural. _After all, it's my food. I can treat him like a human or like food. And when it's the latter it's the latter. We're just different._ Meanwhile, the man had bulged his empty eyes forward, taking a look at what was nearing.

He put a hand on his waist, very close to the sword hilt. 'Begone, vagrants!' he yelled in a chocked voice. 'You're not allowed in here.' Serana saw, even through the thinning mist, his features contract in a way that was unnatural for a man free of bonds.

She felt the urge to breathe deeply, but what good would that do? Only the motion would have played out and none of the benefits would have arisen, aside from the calm induced by the habit. It was a waste of time. She motioned her hands, which crept to her waistline and gripped the armor tight, releasing some stress while giving her a more authorities look. _Or so I've always been told_. She flashed a weak smile, one of the fabricated ones that wasn't fake anymore, and stood firm. 'I'm Serana of Clan Volkihar, daughter of Lord Harkon and Lady Valerica.' She fixed her eyes in the black ones of the watchman, drawing what little power she could muster in case it was needed. 'Let me in.'

'Lady Serana?' asked the watchman, in a mix of euphoria and confusion. 'You've returned, at last. Just like the master said you would.' She focused so much on her own emotional reaction of surprise that she had forgotten the words half a second after, despite her wish to tuck them away for later examinations. The man didn't give her time to think, either. He shifted his gaze on Azrael. 'And who's this accompanying you? No one like him left these walls.'

'He didn't,' she replied, coming back fully to her own senses and flashing a smile again. 'He's the one who found me and brought me here, of his own free will.' _Is that the truth? I don't know myself._ 'I insisted he'd come to present me to my father in person.'

'Hmm…' the watchman hummed, his face losing some of its rigidness and relaxing. He turned to the wall by his side and wrapped his hands around a long rope. He then pulled it down, an action followed by a creaking and squealing sound of cogs moving. The grated gate quaked and then rose from the ground. 'Wise thing you did, my lady,' said the thrall in between the noise, 'the Lord is sure to reward him.'

The squeaking of the mechanisms went in the same rhythm as the irregular rising movement of the grated threshold. It was now high enough for a man to pass, but she waited a little longer. Actually, she considered waiting until it was fully raised. It could give her time think things through, in case there was anything else simple enough to ask the watchman. She let her hands fall by her side and letting her shoulders sink lower, without tension keeping them raised. They had just finished settling in their relaxed position when Azrael's cold hand touched them lightly.

She turned abruptly. He was calm as ever though. 'What exactly' he asked, his voice low but sonorous enough to be heard along the squealing iron, 'is as valuable as his only daughter's life and an Elder Scroll, to your father?'

She spoke quickly enough to avoid the river of painful feelings from swallowing her whole. 'He's a powerful man. Even now he might have various things he could offer you.'

He retracted the hand, brining it to his hidden face. 'But I'm a mortal. What could he offer to the ones who are already vampires?'

'His blood, primarily. Every quarter-breed of this court probably dreams of become a half-breed every day. The difference can be felt,' she concluded, turning around.

The gate was almost completely raised. Not for the reason she had thought of, but she had waited for it to raise fully. As she turned she caught a glimpse of Azrael giving her a nod. A knowing nod, one that smelt like irony. He knew a quarter-breed was different from a half-breed, but in what way and how and when she had no idea and probably wasn't allowed to know. There was so much to know and so much to be suspicious, when it came to him. He could have been a vampire himself, although she doubted it. She'd have recognized someone of her kind by their scent, not counting the fact that vampires feel one another through senses unused in common mortals. That seemed improbable, but he could have been someone hired by her father. He was already a man quite fond of schemes, and anything could have happened in four millennia. She feared she would have troubles recognizing him, even. However, if she was really to examine all of those options one by one, she knew she would have completely lost it. It was better to leave some things unexplored.

The squeaking stopped. 'Go in, my lady,' said the watchman as the noise stopped. He was now in the exact position they had first seen him in. His hands by his side, left dangling, that absent look on his face and the two feet of distance from him and the rope. 'They're surely awaiting for you.'

 _I do wonder,_ she thought, and was about to say it too. She thought it through and decided against it. Even though that man was rendered completely witless by the long-lasting control, there was Azrael listening. He knew her feelings about the castle and the court, both from what she revealed and something that he had understood on his own, most likely by reading the emotions on her face when certain topics came up. She did make an effort to conceal them, and most of the time it worked, but not with him.

'Serana?'

Azrael's voice, neutral and cool, conveyed the meaning extremely well. She turned, only half-way, and gave him a nod. It was yet another habit directly influenced by him. He was the one always nodding. Nevertheless, he had called her because, in spite of the gate being opened, she had stood still without moving an inch.

She stepped forward, casting a glance at the watchman and coming right up to the main gate. They were out of the mist now. When she had turned back to look at Azrael, she had noticed that the boat was barely visible from there. The sky was getting darker and darker, and under the shadow of the castle everything seemed more dim. Putting both her hands on one wing on the gate, she pushed. The vampiric strength awoke, making her arm pulse powerfully for a moment and causing red flashes to come and go from her field of vision. Her canine teeth seemed to gain a sense of touch of their own for a moment, but then everything vanished back into the red. She was used to it and there was nothing unusual about it. She hadn't fed for over a week now, which made it even more normal. _There's bound to be some prisoner inside on which I can feed on,_ she mused.

'How dare you trespass here!' The voice, that of an Altmer, made her snap right back to reality. She knew it, remembered it, but she couldn't have given a name at once to the person speaking. 'Watchman! You were supposed to—'

The speaker went silent all of a sudden. Serana stepped inside the castle to get a better look, especially annoyed by the fact that the difference in light had caused her sight to adapt and in turn had made everything on the outside appear terribly bright. They were in the ante-chamber, a small hall that was only a raised and small taste of the architecture of the castle's interior. The high ceiling, black walls and the gargoyle crouching on the left side, just below the lonely window through which a ludicrously low amount of light came through, gave the small hall a personality nonetheless. She actually remembered quite a few times playing on the gargoyle, riding it like it was a Dragon. It wasn't a magically activated one, just a statue. Her attention shifted, from the room directly to the speaker. Now, free of tension, everything came to mind. _Vingalmo,_ she thought, _you conceited fool._ The Altmer wore a very formal robe, a red and black one, with decorations resembling scales on the fabric. There was an upside to that encounter, which was that she had never seen an expression so stunned on that Elf, who took great pride in maintaining his cool in every situation. _Wait until you meet the one behind me,_ she thought.

'Serana…' the High Elf whispered, staring fixedly at her. His eyes kept searching, looking for something in her face that could probably prove his realization wrong. Where someone directs his or her attention is one of the more vital tells of the nature of the said person's thoughts, and he was looking just at her. The strange thing about that was that Azrael was behind her, and he wasn't giving him a sliver of his attention. He wasn't ignoring him, he didn't seem to have noticed. Azrael was with her, she could feel his deep breathing, his heart beating strongly and slowly, the warmth coming from his skin and the unsettling scent of his blood. He was there, and the Altmer didn't seem to care. There was something about her, and only her, that was terribly frightening to him. 'Is that really you? I cannot believe my eyes…' he murmured, voicing his disbelief more clearly.

On her part there was the grim recognition that some of those awful people were still around, but there wasn't any doubt about the state of things. The things she had already seen that is. 'Why shouldn't it be me?' she answered, beaming her best smile. She was the one coming home, but she tried to make him feel like he was the one having the honor of being welcomed. It seemed to work, thanks to his momentary confusion.

The Altmer stepped backwards twice and then turned, not uttering another word. As he quickened his pace walked towards the doorway separating the ante-chamber from the main hall, she came to the conclusion that her homecoming would have undoubtedly caused some chaos. Her mood sank deeper into discomfort and melancholy, but there was no time to listen to those feelings. 'My Lord!' Vingalmo was calling, even before he'd reached the doorway. 'Everyone! Serana has returned!'

She turned towards Azrael, only to find him looking back at her. They were exchanging a glance, in a way. 'I guess I'm expected after all,' she said, letting the simulated part of her smile fade away and starting to walk ahead.

'That Mer, Vingalmo,' Azrael said, following right behind, 'is he the only Altmer here?'

Yet another one of his questions that came out of nowhere. She had learned to answer them directly and then ask back why he had inquired in the first place. There was a slim chance of him answering then. 'To my knowledge,' she thus said. 'Why do you ask? Something wrong with him?'

'No,' he replied, bringing his eyes away from her own. 'Something wrong with another one of his kind.'

There was no time to explain because, as he finished speaking, she stepped in the doorway. Vingalmo had stepped aside, making way and keeping his gaze lowered. Not enough to prevent him from casting inexpressive but insistent glances at Azrael, who he had only now noticed, but still. He showed some respect even now, after all those years. She couldn't keep her attention onto it for too long and looked ahead. The sudden change in light, from the dim and grey of the previous the entryway to the golden one cast down by the chandelier hanging high from the ceiling. The shadows cast behind her by the bright was dense and solid, and the bright coming from above was so strong that her eyes needed to readjust. There was no more need for the magic-fueled light to persist.

When her sight was perfectly realigned, she swept her gaze across the hall. It hadn't changed a bit. _Four millennia and it hasn't changed a bit._ The tables were positioned in the same way, two on the sides and one, her family's place of honor, on the opposite end of the hall, just below the balcony. There was another balcony on the left side, overlooking the table, whereas on the other flak the mountain went down and with it the level of the rooms' floor. Large, white carpets adorned the center as well as the extreme sides of the hall, which had otherwise dim colors. The golden light gave the stone of the walls and ceiling a lighter tone, but a far more grandiose one. A very distorted idea of grandiose, that was to be said. The other thing was immediately apparent was that the banners carrying the insignia of her family had been taken down to the last one. After her father had ordered the windows barred, those had been the only remaining reminders of how the castle looked back when everything was normal, if anything had ever been normal in her family. The tables at which the court members sat down were wooden, so they were bound to have been replaced at one point, just like the tender had, but they were still in the exact same position and even the chairs were in the exact same spots as she remembered. _I guess mine was the exception,_ she mused, looking at her family's table and its seats in the back of the hall. Those were made of stone and couldn't be moved.

One thing was irritating her deeply about that table, though. There were three chairs, there had always been. The one in the middle for his father, the one on the right for her mother and the one on the left for her. Her mother's seat was empty, and in hers sat someone she remembered well, and not so fondly at that. Orthjolf was a direct, outspoken man with a reputation for inflating every cause he represented, as she had been witness to for much too many times. Now that man sat at her place, in her very chair, beside her father, in the same physical position she had been countless times. Her first memories of the court were of her father telling of her first attempts at reading or mastering magic to the court, while she grinned and enjoyed herself. That place was taken now. She swept her gaze again, this time on the portion closer to her, recognizing some faces along the way. Fura Bloodmouth, for one. To her immense surprise, she came across at least a couple of pale-skinned individuals with elven features. Their visage were light grey, only slightly lighter than the color of Azrael's skin. _Dark Elves…_ she thought.

A voice tore her away from her musing. 'My long lost daughter returns at last.'

A sudden compulsion ran through her limbs, forcing her to turn and look into her father's eyes. It was automatic. He had always been her only firm point in her world, it was natural for her to act that way. Even her mother, who underneath her cold demeanor still cared for her and aimed to be a firm point too, had always admitted quite freely that she was and had always been her father's girl. That bond had endured everything and no matter its contents, whether love or hatred, it had undergone the test of so many years it was beyond hope of being broken or dispelled. The fact that four millennia hadn't been able to destabilize it was proof enough. Right now, she looked in her father's face and felt so many things, good and bad, and understood that the mere fact that she felt something for him was enough to make the bond endure. Unlike the hall though, he had changed. She had too, but she had grown accustomed to what was new in herself. Her father's face was still regal and stern, but the cheeks had grown even bonier and his features even gaunter than the last time she had seen him. That is, she didn't remember that too clearly. The last she remembered of him, was more like it. On the contrary, she remembered the last encounter with her mother very well. But her mother was nowhere to be seen.

Lord Harkon stood in front of the stone table, in the same position but on the opposite side of his seat behind it. He grasped a grey goblet filled to the brim with fresh blood which he kept close to his chest. He donned a martial attire, namely the armor he had had ordered designed for the members of Volkihar royalty after the three of them had turned. It was the same one Serana wore now, coming back to her home. The black, overlapping pieces making up the chestpiece, the vambraces of studded leather, the thick but light red fabric of the sleeves and the cape and the belt, which she didn't weak, with the family heraldry on it. He was extremely pale and his eyes glowed blood red, the small pupils stretched and thin in those bloodshot irises. His hair were dark brown, not too long and tucked behind the ears. The beard styled in the same way she remembered, with bushy mustaches and a slightly less hairy chin, with the sunken cheeks shaved to perfection.

'I,' Lord Harkon continued, 'trusted you'd have brought my Elder Scroll with you.' His eyes wondered on the shape of the Scroll coming out of the folds of Azrael's cloak. The corners of his lips raised, but it couldn't be called a smile. 'I see you did not disappoint.'

Serana wanted to grab the parapet of the balcony where she and Azrael stood, grab it and rip it into splinters. That was the rage flowing through for a brief moment when she heard those words. 'After all these years,' she said, her voice hard and low, 'that is really all you have to say?' She turned left and began to go down the short set of stairs, down into the hall and among the other vampires.

Azrael followed her closely. Very. As if he was preparing to defend her from something.

'I merely expressed my appreciation regarding your dutifulness,' her father objected, as he always did. She found it difficult not to look at him in the eyes. 'Of course I'm delighted to see you, my dearest daughter. Must I really say the words aloud?' he asked with a tired tone, as if talking about something wholly unimportant. The strange thing was that, immediately after, his eyes immediately sparked with new energy. 'If only your traitor mother were here, I would let her watch this reunion before putting her head on a spike.'

The simple information that her mother wasn't dead, for one, and that he didn't know where she was were almost drowned in a river of different feelings. Yet more rage, fear, uneasiness, uncertainty. She felt as if concurring with him was right, but the voice of reason screamed otherwise. Her mother had tried to conceal her from her father, and she had come back to him. Now her father was saying something like that. She turned slightly towards Azrael, almost without thinking about it. _I wonder how would have things gone down if I asked him to lock me there again, or to help me escape my father or to help me find my mother. He knows my father would reward him, but… Did he really do all this for something so trivial? If I know anything about him, it was something more._ The part of him that was seemingly thinking inside her mind suggested her something, something that looked like an obvious truth. _He's probably weaving his schemes as me and my father speak. This is a delicate situation. I need to be on the winning side, whatever that may be._ Now, before her father, she felt foolish about going there and being in that room. She had never thought about that before.

'Now, tell me,' Harkon said, turning towards Azrael himself. He had probably noticed Serana's gaze shifting towards him. 'Who is this stranger you have brought into our home?'

Something flashed in her mind. With a little bit of skill, that was her change to slip away from the conversation and leave that burden to Azrael. _My father will have someone on his level then,_ she thought. Something else warned her against it. _Leave him space, and he will have more control on the situation._ In the end though, she preferred to put her own sanity in front of keeping away a menace that was so distant and possibly unreal that is might have not been worth her strength.

She turned towards Azrael and gestured at him with her left hand, stepping simultaneously out of the way. 'I believe it'd be best if he introduced himself.'

Her father gave her a solemn nod and then turned towards the Dunmer, locking eyes in the black void hiding the face. 'Very well, then. Who are you, stranger?'

Azrael moved his hand slowly down the side of his cuirass with the right hand. 'They call me Azrael,' he said, glacially. The hand finally stopped at the height of the belt, leaving his chest open and exposed. He stood straight and cool, but she knew something more. His hand was resting on and hiding the hilt of the dagger from her father. 'I happened on the trail your subjects left behind while looking for your daughter and found her before they could. She asked me to be brought somewhere safe, in her family's home, and I obliged. I was especially convinced by what I've heard of the Volkihar Court,' he continued, but Serana needed to keep herself from turning tersely at him. There was a sly tone in his voice now that she had never heard before. 'They said Lord Harkon would be generous with the one who brought his daughter back, safe and sound.'

'You heard well, and a generous reward is due those who worked hard to deserve it,' her father said, and his voice sounded pleased. 'I see you know who I am. I supposed my daughter will have told by now who she, and we all,' he said as he swept his arm across the hall, 'are.'

'Vampires,' Azrael said, still in that tone. 'But not just any run at he mill vampire, am I not right?'

'You are indeed,' her father concurred. 'We are the oldest and among the most powerful vampires in Skyrim. For decades we lived here, far from the cares of the world. All that ended when my wife betrayed me and stole away that which I valued most. But,' he said, waving his hand as if signaling to drop the subject, 'this is not the time to dwell on such memories. Now you know what we are, what I am, and there is but one gift I can give you that is equal in value to the Elder Scroll and my daughter.' Her father stepped forward, opening his arms. 'I offer you my blood. Take it, and you will walk as a wolf among sheep. Men will tremble at your approach and you will never fear death again.'

'The Elder Scroll and your only daughter's life?' Azrael asked. He had dropped the sly tone now and there was a skeptic not in his voice, but it even more strange. It was too marked. His tone was expressive, even more so if compared to his usual one. It wasn't normal. 'How does your blood fare against what I brought you? Show me.'

'You do not know what you ask, weakling,' grinned her father, exposing his canine teeth. 'Very well, I shall grant your wish. Behold the power!'

 _No, damn you…_ So soon. She had hoped not to see such a thing never again, but she was also resigned that it could happen. She hadn't envisioned, or hadn't wished to envision it happening so quickly however. She turned her gaze away, hearing all too clearly the sound of the otherworldly energies consuming her father's figure and ripping out his darkest nature from within. The black mist surrounded him as he bent forward, then he threw his hands backwards in an almost glorious fashion. The metallic screech of the transformed vampire echoed in the hall as the blackness dispersed and vanished, but Serana had still no wish to look. To gaze at that monstrosity was to gaze upon an evil omen, of which she didn't know the exact nature. Ever since she knew there was a prophecy involved in their family matters, that form had taken the shape on the evil omen. It was a warning, perhaps direction to her and only to her. It was too much to bear, and she always wished never to lay eyes upon it again. Personally, she had transformed one time only, and it had been horrid. It had been like reliving the entire ritual, only in a shortened and less intense version. The pure similarity, however, made her recall the rite. Something she had no wish to remember.

Although in the middle of the conversation she had had little time where she could think clearly, she could sense without any thinking required that control over the situation was slipping quicker than ever from her hands. She cursed her moment of weakness when she had so simply given up the direction of the conversation's flow just to have a moment of peace. She cursed herself for having been so blind. There was very little she could do now without risking everything, especially with Azrael having that sudden change. She was looking for chances to intervene, maybe diminish the size of the mistake she had done, but now she had something else absorbing her resolve. Her father's figure still stood on the side of her field of vision, as if trying constantly to enter it and force her to look upon it.

'This is the power that I offer,' Lord Harkon said, his voice ghoulish and smothered but pulsating with energy. Dark energy. 'Now, make your choice.'

Serana looked at Azrael, a couple feet away from her and around a hand-breath higher than her. She had counted on her father's support, but he had turned into that thing. For a moment, she had also counted on Azrael's support, but the Dunmer seemed to have turned her in. She still couldn't believe it. _How could all of these eight past days been part of an act? How did he manage to be so cold, if really he's nothing like it?_ The passing thought that, in truth, Azrael was just like her father made her feel incredibly sad. The two certainly seemed to understand one another. If that was like it all looked, she had been played for a fool from the very start. Maybe Azrael was indeed her father's man, and what they were doing now was just a little game to prevent her from knowing. Ever since the ritual, her father had always discounted her for being less smart than she was. What she lacked was decisiveness, certainly not craftiness. Now he believed to be playing her once again. That was probably it. Maybe it had all been a lie.

'Well, well…' Azrael said, back to the sly tone. 'That is something.'

Even the way he had talked to her, so peculiar and elaborate to the point of being sophisticated at times, had melted in the light of that simpler, banal structuring. There was disgust mingling in her thoughts. She knew, deep down, that there was nothing wrong. It was the contrast. That was clear, but her thoughts were not her feelings and were not her beliefs. Her thoughts held very little say in the present situation. She looked at the Dunmer, dismayed inside but trying to remain cool on the outside, as he brought the hand positioned on the dagger's hilt further back. Not to the Scroll, though.

'Before I communicate my decision to you,' he continued, bringing his hand forward again, 'I'd like to offer something first.' He finally showed the object he was holding in the light of the chandelier. Serana looked at it keenly. It was a bottle, a rather large one, full of a substance that was slightly darker and slightly denser than mortal blood. 'I'm sure,' Azrael continued, turning for a moment and showing the flagon to the whole court, 'you've heard the rumors from the outside. A Dragonborn, someone with the blood of a Dragon flowing through his veins, has come to Skyrim. Well, this…' He raised the bottle. 'This is his blood. The blood of a hero mixed with the one of those fire-breathing lizards. And I'm sure it will be delightful. I admit,' he continued, turning towards her father, 'I did not count on such a generous treatment, so I had this as a token of trust. Do you accept it?'

Serana was too confused to understand, but something stirred powerfully inside her.

'Accept it, Lord Harkon!' she heard a lesser vampire scream from the table.

She felt herself sink deeper and deeper into her mind, as if unable to react in any way to what was happening. She didn't even want to control the situation any longer. Control what? Everything was confused. The ice was gripping her again. It crept up her legs, holding them still, flowed in her chest and halting her every movement. Her limbs were frozen still, one of her hands motionless right in front of her mouth, tormenting her lips in an attempt to control her nervousness. Now there was very little left. She looked around, and realized time had flown by so quickly. The vampire at the tables were each pouring down the substance in their goblets, ripping it from hand to hand. They were screaming confusedly. Her father was behind, not in the range of her eyesight. Good thing, too.

Then, without any premonition, something tore through the ice. It reached for her, shattering every veil until it caught up to her confused reasoning. She recognized it at once. It was that little sliver of Azrael she had with her, that had found just a few minutes before. She waited for it to suggest something, utter one of its verdicts of shed some light on the situation. Nothing came of it. It was there, almost shimmering, lucid. It seemed alive, but it didn't say anything. And yet it was there, everywhere and nowhere, somehow hovering around her thoughts, giving them order, while at the same time spreading a new kind of ice, an ice that cooled everything that was too hot to be handled.

She waited a moment, and then it shattered. Tersely. _Idiot,_ she said to herself, _you stupid, naive girl. Is it not obvious? Isn't this all terribly obvious?_ There was one detail, one insignificant piece of the puzzle, that indicated more clearly than ever what was really going on. There was a piece of Azrael inside her, true enough. It was a piece of the Azrael she knew; the cold, calculating and pitiless progeny of a race that had failed to pass along the values of tradition and custom, breeding something that was cynical to its very roots. The clarity of his mind, the indomitable presence he had on the world and the deadly chill that such two things combined produced. It was so real, so tangible, she could feel that freezing cold taking over her mind and fueling her with new and previously hidden strength. Everything was clear. _That isn't you,_ she thought, _it's a lying mask._ She brought her hand down by her side. _Azrael, you're planning something._

'And for you, my Lord' the lying mask said to her father, 'I accept your gift. You will drink my blood and grant me your power.'

 _I don't know why you gave me a taste of your blood before,_ she was thinking, _but there was a reason. There's always a reason and there's never a feeling. Isn't that true, my own redeemer? You plan to kill us, to kill us all. You fooled everyone. It's your blood in the bottle, and it will enfeeble us all enough for you to cut us down like cattle. You will slaughter us to the man. The hunters, fallen into a trap laid by their prey. Poetic, maybe. But you won't. After you've dealt with my family, you will dispatch of me because I'll no longer be useful to you. You think I won't be able to react, and maybe you were right. But you showed me something. You showed me that in convention there's skepticism, in faith there's contempt, and in belief there's cynicism. But in fear, there's also courage. For once, you will be outplayed at your game. Whatever happened, you gave me your best weapon. You gave me your mind. I know what you're planning. And I'll stop you. You won't forget about me. As I said it, so it shall be._

Her legs tensed and her hands seeped with energy. Her sense of touch extended again to all of her teeth as a dark, repellent force flooded her entire body, flowing unstoppable. She almost thought there would be fear, since those were the exact sensation that came before the complete loss of control, but she wasn't afraid. She knew she wouldn't have gone mad. She knew doing what she was intentioned to do would hurt, a lot, and possibly kill her, but it didn't scare her. Considering her normal conditions, when she did almost everything because she felt she had to, now there was a sense of freedom, of true free will. She could choose to risk or not to, but something that wasn't worth dying for was something not worth doing in the first place, given the circumstances. The acrid scent of Azrael's blood reached her and the pulse caused shook her violently. Now she was ready, and there was nothing to stop her. A clear mind was being combined with an active, pure body that followed its instincts with precision. Azrael was in front of her.

She leapt, right at him, landing with absolute accuracy with her hands on his shoulders. Her feet struck his lower back and she felt him stumbling forward, locking one of the two legs and pivoting on it in an attempt to turn around. Despite not expecting an attack, he was still reacting strongly and quickly to the unseen threat. There wasn't a lot of time that remained. She closed one arm around his neck, trying to choke him. He didn't disappoint, and very quickly turned his head around to his side to prevent her from pressing directly on his larynx. A clear thought struck Serana, but that one wasn't like the others. It was clear, cristalline, and it didn't force her to stop to be followed. It came and went away. _If catching him off guard is this difficult, he's probably impossible to beat when warned._ She had caught him off guard however. Her other hand reached for the edge of the hood, ripping it away from his head and lowering it. Wavy black hair touched her face and she moved them away nimbly, until there was nothing left underneath if not a pale grey skin.

She rose her head for the last time. 'Don't drink!' she screamed, before darting her open mouth downward.

Her teeth sank and drank. She ingested a swallow of the caustic fluid, feeling her whole body revolting and warning her to spit it all out. _You won't forget about me. I swear it._ And as more and more of that acrid, scorching lymph rushed down her throat she felt that little sliver of Azrael's mind abandoning her, disappearing back into the chaos it had come from. As she began to lose consciousness and her muscles started to obey her less and less, she felt the Dunmer beneath her ceasing all resistance. He fell down, perhaps on his knees, right as she tore the fangs out of his flesh. She fainted and he probably fainted too, in her deadly embrace.

* * *

A/N: A lot of twists and turns and whatnot in this one. I realized that for the sake of conveying the exact pace and atmosphere I had to change the style slightly as well. I'm not commenting on anything, because I'd be spoiling your feelings and thoughts alongside my own fun.

On a separate note, _Day Keeper, Night Reaper_ has reached two of its milestones in one go: getting to this point in the story, and reaching fifty followers. You could argue that it's not a lot, and it isn't, but I'm still very much content with it.

So, quite a celebration for quite a chapter. This won't be taken down, so post anything you want without threat. As I already said, there will probably be one or two more chapters before the end of the year, after which the rhythm should stabilize at a chapter every two weeks. It's early to say it, but that the prevision.

Be seeing you, dear readers.


	11. Chapter X: Waking Nightmare

A/N: To continue from where you left off in the preview, search "'Who he is,' he concluded" in the search bar and continue from there.

* * *

Chapter X: _Waking Nightmare_

The crimson glow coming from the stained glass window dyed the light coming through its intricate frames, making it less piercing to her eyes. The shadows cast by the small columns overlapped with the rays. They were cast by the light came in from the opposite side of the cathedral, from the windows on the loggia opposite of the one where she was walking on. The dark stone of the walls was different from the one that made up the floor, although she noticed it only now that the two were side by side. The red light rendered all those differences less noticeable. It lit the cracks between the slabs with a particular shade, which came close to vermillion red. Everything in there reminded her of blood and suffering. There was only one word that she would think of that would suffice to describe the mere atmosphere of that place: nightmarish.

She hadn't been up there many times. She had tried not to enter the sanctum in the first place, and the times she had to were ones where it was preferable to stay on the floor. Those high balconies had been build later, when her father had decided to renew the hall. The stained glass was added during that round of renovations. The balconies were necessary to put the windows in place, but the Lord had decided at the last minute that it would have been nice to have permanent lanais overlooking the sanctum. Lastly, those artists had carved decorations in the floor, now almost completely worn out. The cuts were supposed to be symbols, and the biggest one in the center represented the emblem of the Volkihar Clan. The ones on the sides were various interpretations of marks alluding to the Mace of Souls. To the Daedric Prince Molag Bal.

She quickly brought her attention elsewhere. _Not now, please, not now. Not here._ She was mortally afraid of anything resembling a temple, and staying in one that was dedicated to the one thing that had caused that fear to arise was particularly unsettling. She couldn't come to terms with the impression that her father had thought about it and was using that to get something from her. He hadn't asked her to go to the sanctum, he had sent his man with specific information that he wanted to see her on the left balcony. _I have no idea of what he might want,_ she thought, trying to get all of the options together but finding very little to go on with. It was a surprise call, although it wasn't completely out of the questions that Azrael was the matter to discuss.

Thinking was best left for when the moment required it, though. Right now, she was busy fending off all sorts of feelings that were coming back to her. Curiously enough, she found that the strong scent of blood hanging in the air caused a repulsive instinct in her. _I wonder how much time has to go by before I forget what happened._ Something in her instinctual core had associated blood with pain and loss of consciousness, and she had still to learn again that normally, a mortal's life lymph wasn't harmful to her. She knew Azrael's one was toxic, and she had took action considering it might have been lethal. The bond between the two factors was resilient though, and removing it still required some work on her conflicting feelings, which was something she would be willing to do only when the situation in the real world was resolved. The question was, would it ever be?

'I see you have come, child.'

Her father's voice made her raise her gaze. His tone was even, not leaning towards anything in particular, but there was a hint of impatience in it. From the first thing, she could conclude that, despite her fears, she hadn't been summoned because of something wrong she had done. From the second, she'd have said there was something he was eager to discuss. It was a good kind of impatience, which was the only kind that could be detected through subtle hints like that one. His other kind of impatience, as in annoyance or irritation, was displayed in a much more flamboyant way. _Flamboyant, if we want to use an euphemism._ The bottom line to all that was that there was something he was keen on resolving. But even if it related to her in any way, it wasn't something she had done wrong. That alone gave her some reassurance.

Lord Harkon stood right on the edge of the balcony, with his hips resting against the stone parapet, and was looking down in the middle of the sanctum. He kept his hands folded behind his back, just below the edge of the red cape he donned along with the ceremonial outfit. It was a red tunic with black adornments on it, the fabric of which had a very intricate weave. Along with it he wore the light pair of black boots, as opposed to the ones plated with steel that went with the armor, and elegant fingerless gloves. The long nails, more akin to talons, were left exposed and well in sight. _All in all, he's become a bit more eccentric since I left this place,_ Serana thought, not fully recognizing the down-to-earth man that had raised her. It had been a steady thing in those five days. She failed to really recognize him. There was something in his that had changed, but it was beyond her understanding. As her gaze slid from his hands to his head, she noticed that he was slowly moving his fingers one by one, yet one more sign of his good kind of impatience. She had even grown quite curious of what he wanted to talk about.

She moved the last, difficult step. Her leg felt unresponsive, as did pretty much her entire body. It was a lot better now in comparison to the first few days. She could walk on her own now and cover the whole castle without help, but between the stairs and the long way from her chamber she still was somewhat weary. It wasn't the same kind of exhaustion mortals experience. It was almost as if her body was extremely wary of strains. Dragging her leg in place, she leaned on the parapet and shifted some weight from her legs to her hands, vaguely improving the situation. She felt the cold stone even though the leather vambraces.

'Did you wish to discuss something with me, father?' she asked softly. Despite all the good signs he was showing she had best always behaving warily around him. Especially after such a long time.

Harkon didn't answer immediately. He raised his gaze, staring in front of him into the other side's stained glass windows. She noticed that he had shaved the shade of beard that had appeared on his cheeks when she had seen him the second time, after waking up. The mustache was untouched, but the beard on the chin had been trimmed slightly as well. _Such an attention to small things, for someone like him._ More evidence kept piling on.

'Yes,' he answered, making her shift her gaze from the lower part of his face to the height of his eyes. 'There is one matter I indeed wanted to discuss with you.' He turned, looking at her in the eyes for a moment with a blank expression, after which he brought his eyes towards the floor of the sanctum, right in its center, in the middle of the lighter colored circle of stone bearing the worn out carvings of their dynasty's heraldry.

Serana lowered her gaze as well. The glance they ha exchanged right before had suggested it to be what he intended. _I guess whatever we will discuss lies…_

Her thoughts came to a halt. In the center of the lighter circle lay a prone figure. The dim, grey light penetrating through the windows below illumined its outlines, but had it not been for her enhanced sight in the dark it would have been quite difficult to make out anything. The form was mostly black or dark grey, but she remembered most of it by heart. Her eyes moved compulsively along its frame, locating the handle of the longsword sticking out as a darker shade on the floor, as did the bow and the arrows in the quiver. The cloak was thrown over to one side and laid motionless on the floor. Right beside the sword's handle and the bow's upper arm, there was a black shape. It was his head, hoodless, covered by thick, wavy black hair. A few slivers of pale ashen skin could just be seen in between the different locks.

She had reached a conclusion way before her body did, but once it did she felt something twitching very hard in her throat. It was a warning. The substance giving her life knew that man was dangerous. _Why? What's the meaning of this?_ A strong tremor irradiated from her chest to every fiber of her body. It made her arms and hands quake and her legs tremble, so strong she feared her knees would refuse to obey her and let her fall to the ground on the spot.

She turned towards her father, who was as calm as before. 'What about him?' she asked, steeling herself against that tremor and trying to stay calm. She was unable to hide a small quiver in her tone, however. Further stabilizing her tone, she made it a little softer. 'I thought you had made your decision,' she said, 'that the matter was resolved. Yours was the right decision, father.' It was manipulative, she knew it, and she wasn't ashamed of it.

Nevertheless, he didn't react to either in any visible way. His face remained expressionless. 'I am glad you think that,' he said, 'but I do not share your eagerness.'

'Father,' she said vehemently, not cutting him off but coming very close to doing so. She hadn't even thought about what to say, she just wanted to dissuade him. 'I don't know how those doubts came to you, but there's nothing more to think about. You made your choice, you know how the rest of the court feels about it. That mortal tried to trick us and butcher us like animals. He can't go unpunished for this.'

Her father slowly turned to the side, looking at her in the eyes again. She held his gaze silently, looking as his expression gradually changed as he looked at her. He pinched his eyebrows and his lips pursed ever so slightly. 'And you? How do you feel about it?'

For a very short moment, a storm broke out inside her. Every thought, sensations and feeling, even those carefully tucked away or repressed as best as she could came back in one, destructive wave of confusion, fear and tension. _I don't know, father, why did you even ask me? I don't know that myself. I just want him out of my sight._ She was so focused on what was going on inside her that she almost completely drained all attention away from her senses, aside from touch. There were so many things going on in her body that she could not ignore them. Feelings of lightness substituted strong sensations of being overwhelmed and annihilated. Her hands went back and forth from feeling dizzy and relaxed to being filled with surges of energy that, left uncontrolled, could have brought her to ripping away parts of her palms. Her near empty blood vessels seemed to fill with a force with no physical substance that nonetheless made her feel like she would burst from within.

While the mind was beginning to clear, the body was still raging with all sorts of different feelings, but her mind was all she needed to answer. She wouldn't have given a straight answer to her father anyway. 'Honestly, I don't really know,' she said, making an effort to keep her lips from quaking. _I don't want to lay eyes on him. I'm terrified of seeing him and I'm afraid of the things I feel for him. I just want him out of my sight. But how do I convince you of that? What do you want, father?_ She tried to calm herself, and redirect the question. 'You know me, father, I just want what's best for the court. They were almost unanimous. For once that Vingalmo and Orthjolf agreed on something,' she said, beaming a pleasant smile, 'we should give them what they wished for. Azrael has to die, for the good of the court.'

Her father's eyes sparkled slightly, and he pinched his eyebrows even more. _He's curious,_ she guessed, _I wonder what about._ She had the feeling she wouldn't have to wait very long. 'Don't you feel anything,' he asked, confirming her assumption, 'anything at all, for the one who rescued you from your slumber? For the person who saved you?'

'No, I don't,' she said as quickly as she could. _Don't reopen that wound, father, I won't let you._ 'He used me, lied to me, even tried to point me to the Dawnguard,' she said, conscious that she trying to convince herself of those things. 'Why should I feel anything for someone who sent me into death's embrace at the hands of our enemies? Who might have sent me to my death? Do you think I have a debt of gratitude to him, who used me to come here and kill us all?'

'And why did he do that?'

She shook her head, trying to exhale but not finding any air in her lungs. There were things she thought correct but didn't want to believe. 'I don't know, father. The people are afraid of vampires of late, and he's a hero among them. Maybe he felt it was his responsibility to put an end to us.' There was one more things to say. _Come on, girl, say it._ She braced herself for a short moment. 'If you meant to ask if he's part of the Dawnguard, then no. I don't think so. I strongly believe he acted alone, and took the initiative himself. That doesn't mean he'll be the end of our trouble.'

Her father nodded twice, slowly but firmly, in a dismissive manner. 'I am aware of that,' he added, just as indifferently as he had gestured. 'I wanted you to tell me what he is like. What he does, how he behaves, how others treat him.' He fired her a scrutinizing glance, pausing for a brief moment. 'Who he is,' he concluded.

Serana swallowed her surprise, feeling uneasy. _Why do you want to know that? You're not telling me something, that's obvious, but it's something big._ She considered her options carefully, conflicted between trying to dissuade him and complying, but reason suggested the latter. _He seems determined, whatever his goal is._ It was wiser and more prudent to play along. It wasn't as if that was an easy question to answer, even if she decided to. For the moment, she chose to follow his reasoning, but she brought her gaze away from his eyes. She felt under pressure. Her gaze wandered for e brief moment before it stopped on Azrael's still figure in the center of the sanctum. That allowed her to focus on the answers to the questions.

It was a difficult task, to sort through all the things she might have said about him. Firstly, all her personal feelings needed to be removed from the picture. She had no intention to reveal them to her father and didn't want to go over them again herself. Likewise, most of her thoughts and speculations had to be ridden of. She assumed a lot of things about him that weren't necessarily true, and those were best left out. _The absurd thing,_ she realized, _is that in spite of all, he made me feel well. Not pleased or happy, it wasn't that, but he was a constant source of… I don't even know._ There were moments in his presence when she felt protected, others when she felt cheery, some others afraid. There were some when she felt understood, at long last, after no one had been able to do for centuries. In his absence, she needed an entire circle of different people, all of which would give her only a part of what he was able to awaken in her. _He, alone, made me feel the entire spectrum of every feelings I have ever experienced. Not every single one, definitely, but most. That's it_ , she thought, looking at his black, dense locks of hair. _I feel alive when I'm with him._

That was the main of the many reasons why it was so difficult to answer her father's question. 'Well,' she began, still not looking at him directly. She even tried to distance herself physically from him, even though the column on her right prevented her from going too far. 'It's not easy. He was quite unreadable most of time, and even the things that made sense about him were very hard to piece together.' There was a safe route she could take that seemed the safest. 'I don't know much about him directly, but there are several things I understood from how he behaved.'

Harkon nodded, only once this time. And very slowly. 'If that's what you know,' he said, while his head was still rising, 'then that's what I want to hear.'

'Very well.' She gave one more moment of thought to it, but then she made her mind up. 'Firstly, he was extremely secretive and undecipherable, which made him an exceedingly dangerous character. We saw it with out very own eyes. It wasn't only his enigmatic nature to render him threatening, but its combination with other traits.'

'Such as?'

'I could go on for quite some time talking about how physically strong and nimble he was for a mortal, or about how he used forms of magic that I never thought even existed, but his weapon seemed to be mainly his own mind. He was razor-sharp in his thinking, very perceptive and had an ability to make plans that took into consideration every minimal factor. When he first found me, he quickly understood so many things about me that I soon became unsure of everything. Every time I opened my mouth, he seemed to understand something. Voice tonality, choice of words, phrase structure, it seemed there was no end to the things he paid attention to. Once he had all those information, he was able to organize them and memorize them to perfection. The next step he took was to make use of them, into very effective and creative ways.' She glanced over, but her father was still. In truth, he seemed absorbed by what she was saying. 'There were various occasions when he reflected this, in a lot of different ways. Either through some crystal-clear analyses or sometimes piercing and very shrewd questions, making the other reveal things he wouldn't have wanted to reveal. Directly or indirectly, it didn't matter. For all the time I have spent with him, this has been his predominant trait and I don't recall an occasion when his logic wasn't flawless or when he didn't notice something. He even predicted most events with uncanny precision. The only exception being five days ago, when he tried to kills us all.'

'You have a lot of respect for this Elf.'

Serana looked down, staring at the floor below. Her hands were trembling and it felt like her ribs were shaking, making her entire chest quiver. 'You taught me to respect one's enemies,' she said, controlling her voice.

Her father's lips slowly parted in something that was very close to a smile. 'And you have learned it well. Go on, please. Enough with his acumen, tell me something about how he interacts. His general demeanor.'

Ones again, many different memories needed to be sorted out. 'He was different from what you've seen,' she clarified, remembering the strange behavior he had adopted to trick her father. 'He was silent most of the time, as if he didn't like to talk. When he had to, he remained cold and detached. He talked and moved very calmly. The tone he used was always rather unemotional. I don't think I've ever heard him laugh and I've likewise never seen him without the hood. In spite of that, he managed to be quite communicative. It required a good deal of intuition, but it could be understood.' She cast a glance in her father's direction. That was the part about his behavior she found most interesting, but she could tell her father didn't agree. She knew what he was interested in, and tried to comply. It was a hard part, because she only had his encounter with that rogue, Laegiine, to go on. 'Apart from that, he was rather forthright in all his interaction. He didn't mince words and went right to the point, sometimes skipping every and all kinds of conventions. He discussed what he meant to, got what he wanted and moved on. Despite this,' she continued, remembering the conversation she had overheard, 'he could be quite patient when explaining or expressing his thoughts, which were very complicated most of the times, and listened very intently. This goes back to what I said earlier, but it always seemed he was understanding more than the meaning of your words when he listened. It could be both very reassuring and quite intimidating.'

Now that she had touched all of the soft spots, her father seemed content. He had heard what he wanted, and manifested his satisfaction with a slow nod of the head. He drummed with his clawed fingers once on the parapet and then half-closed his eyes. 'A man like that must have quite a reputation. What do his fellow mortals say of him?'

That volley of questions was proving to be quite in depth. _And still I can't be sure of what your angle is,_ she thought, holding back her dubious expression and lowering her gaze once again. 'That was probably the most interesting part. He was both respected and feared by everyone, but I think he was also very dear to the ones closest to him. He was strong, calm and clever. I can't think of someone better to have as a leader. That's how a minority saw him, however. To almost everyone else, he was as much a protector as he is a threat. He was a mystery that couldn't be solved by anyone, had a reputation for trampling rules and laws to get what he wanted and didn't seem to have many scruples, if any. He was a willing pariah, that had retired from the world and followed a path unknown to everyone. I have been with him for a week, and I haven't been able to understand anything more. I still don't know what the deal was with him, but everyone's' blood started running cold if they so much as heard his name.'

'And…' Her father's tone turned distant, very faintly, and she couldn't be sure it wasn't on purpose. 'Does he have any weaknesses?'

Serana smiled, partly to hide her vague embarrassment. On second thought, she couldn't tell why she had felt awkward. 'It's difficult,' she said as a preamble, buying some time. 'I could list quite a few shortcomings, things that could render him unpleasant, but weaknesses? That's something else. He had a significant lack of comprehension about everything that concerns feelings, moods and such. Similarly, he cared little for any sort of diplomatic approach and probably had little to no respect for etiquette or formalities. He was utterly insensitive, his empathy was built through his artificial comprehension of emotions rather then the natural contact that exists between two people. For weaknesses, there were maybe two.' She had listed all those previous things while thinking of the definite answer to give, and she had found two spots that could have counted among what her father had asked. 'Firstly, I guess his lack of understanding of feelings extended to himself as much as it did to others, so I think he would have found it rather hard to handle anything where pure logic didn't apply, which leads to the next thing. I know for a fact that he was very analytical and decisive, but he lacked a moral code or a set of rules. He made his decisions case by case, and while that made him extremely threatening as a foe, I would guess it could have been used to make him fall prey to indecision. Give him a situation that can't be resolved with sheer rationality and he wouldn't have been able to proceed. Without a meaningful contact with his feelings or a set of rules to guide him, he would have entered in a never-ending cycle of analysis and theorizing. It could have worked especially well in his case, because he seemed like the type of person who was resistant to outside help.'

She quieted down, not having anything more to add. She heard the echo of her words playing once or twice in the sanctum before dying out, repeating her last word. Help. _An ill omen,_ she thought, holding back a smile. She was looking sideways at her father. The crimson light coming from the window behind him formed a glowing halo around his profile, an impression further sustained by her eyes' efforts to amplify the little light in the room. She looked intently at Lord Harkon, trying to understand something from his expression. It was mostly inexpressive, but there were very vague traces of different impulses on his traits. His eyes, bloodshot and almost vacant, were fixed on something indistinct in front of him, although he was presumably looking at nothing at all.

He was rather pensive, but there was more. When given a careful look, his lips looked different. _That's because they are,_ she realized, noticing their curvature. They were tight, the corners stretched in a way that she had seen them take before, when he smiled. It was a sly, almost cruel kind of smirk. _I wonder what he's thinking. This is all rather strange, but it seems now there's something specific._ Trying to solve that riddle was like tracing back a few minutes. He had called her in and he had been given the information he wanted. _But what now?_ There was no way she could answer that question. Likewise, there was no way she could forebear from asking.

'What was this about, father?' she said, turning towards him to avoid giving him the impression she was afraid or hostile towards his previous questioning. 'Why ask me about a dead man? Was there something in particular that you had an interest in?'

Lord Harkon's eyes glimmered weakly. 'I have decided,' he said, somberly, 'to let him live.'

Serana's forearms were shaken by an uncontrollable tremor. 'What? Are you out of your mind, father?'

This time it wasn't a glimmer any more. It was a bright flash, a red blaze burning for a moment in his eyes along with his anger. 'I am not,' he said, straightening gradually and looking at her from above. 'And you should watch your words, Serana.' His chin was raised proudly, giving a second warning that wasn't expressed in words. 'You are blood of my blood, but I'll not tolerate your insolence. You have rebelled me once. You won't do it again.'

'I'm sorry father, it's just…' She trailed off. Her father kept his gaze on her patiently.

 _It's just that I can't think,_ was the only thing resounding in her head. The only conclusive thought she could put together was precisely that she couldn't think of anything. Every other idea seemed to lose its consistency and falter into nothingness just as her voice. Her reasoning simply trailed off. Instead of trying to understand and cope with what her father had told her, her every bit of energy was being destined to refuse and deny what had just happened, leaving her no space and no strength to put together a coherent thought, let alone a coherent reply to her father's intimidation. As it often happened when she felt afraid or embarrassed, she felt her chest closing hard on itself. Her only consolation was that, were she in need to breathe, it would have been remarkably hard to do so. And, thankfully, she didn't need to.

'Yes?' her father asked, still quite firmly.

She couldn't say how many time had passed since she had lost herself into the chaos going on in her mind. At least, the solicitation snapped a part of her mind awake. 'Nothing, father, I was just surprised.' That wasn't a lie, but also a very big understatement. She was stunned. Enough of her was now able to continue the conversation. It was obvious, really. For the entirety of the discussion she had talked as if Azrael was already dead, while he had spoken as if he was still alive and well. She should have noticed. _But I'm not him._ 'Forgive me,' she started off, staying safe, 'mine were hurried words. It left me… I couldn't say. I was not expecting this,' she swiftly rephrased, knowing full well that it wasn't the right time to test Harkon's patience.

She couldn't say if it was thanks to her efforts or just the time passing, but there was a more benevolent expression painted on her father's visage now. 'I forgot how eloquent you can be,' he said, 'even I have difficulties understanding whether you're lying or not.'

Coming from him, that was a significant praise. 'I needed to be such. Father, if you don't mind, can you explain to me the reasons behind your decision? I don't mean to convince you otherwise,' she clarified, even thought that was precisely her intention, 'I would just like to know how you plan to control him once he is free again, and how to tell the court about it.'

'Mortals are complicated and nonsensical,' Lord Harkon stated beforehand, 'but if I know anything about them, then he is in a dangerous situation. Despite his awareness, he was beaten to his own game when he came here. You made sure that happened. He is now tied to this place, both because he will wake up a vampire and because he will be at our mercy. His sharp mind will serve him no longer. Vampirism will shake him from within so strongly he won't be able to resist too long.'

'Why do you think it will work?'

'You told me yourself,' he explained, glancing briefly at her. 'He resists help, which would be his only option to escape the situation he's in. He relies only on his mind, but what he'll have to cope with is not something he can solve. What will he do about an enemy that will devour him from the inside? He could yield to it, but neither of us consider that an option, or he will become so depleted and so shattered he will have abandon even his own mind.'

'Are you planning to drive him mad?'

'He will drive himself mad, trying to defy his own nature,' he cut short. He didn't seem to keen on talking about it, or perhaps he had no wish to discuss it further with her. 'As for the court, I'm sure they will come to realize the reason of my action. Your savior will be a tool, no more. Killing him would mean a waste of resources.'

For a moment longer, she tried to keep herself from turning away. She felt a tingling sensation near her eyes, on the sides, and sensed her eyelids closing with an increased frequency. _I'd be tearing right now, if there was any water left in my body,_ she thought, recognizing those sensations very precisely. There was much rage and much shock, both born from a deeper feeling of discomfort. _I'm in my house, my castle, but I still don't feel at home._ Another weak tremor shook her forearms and hands. There were dark energies mixing with her emotions, transforming her uneasiness into a strange kind of hunger.

Incapable of holding herself any longer, she turned towards the column on her right, casting a glance at the exit and briefly wishing she had never entered. There had been nothing but pain after she had crossed that threshold. She felt her jaw clenching, and she scratched her canine teeth together twice, trying to get a hold of herself. Why she found it so difficult, she had no idea. She kept her gaze on the stone, trying to follow its shape and frame, vainly trying to get out of her own head. Then she heard her father sigh, which was strange on its own, but what surprised her even more was the motion she glimpsed at in the corner of her field of vision. Harkon was extending a hand towards her, a hand he placed on her right shoulder, the one on his opposite side. 'My sweet daughter,' she heard him whisper, nearing her and embracing her.

Everything else came to a very slow stop. In spite of everything, she realized that something in her had been waiting for some kind of appreciation. True, she had rebelled him and he was still a danger to her, but he was her father. She couldn't deny that. She had no wish to deny that. _He's the only thing left in my world that I can call family._ She turned her head around, without forcing herself, until she felt his chest on her temple.

'Once, Serana,' he began, speaking softly and slowly, 'I promised you that I would have turned Skyrim to ash, if that was what it was needed to save you. When you disappeared, I was lost. Four millennia, and I have lived with the overwhelming shame of not having fulfilled that promise.' There was no hint of malice or manipulation in his tone. If anything, he seemed both gloomy and relieved. 'You can't know my joy in discovering you were alive, merely hidden away from me.'

She let her eyes close, finally finding some calm. 'How did you find out?'

'It was our enemies who led me to you, in fact,' he told. 'A lonely mortal, burning with self-righteousness, started inspecting ancient caves and places all throughout the land. We didn't and couldn't know which places he had explored, but word got to us he had found something. He claimed to have discovered an ancient vampire hideout, dating back thousands of years. I knew at once it was you, although I didn't know how you had been kept away from me. On that day,' he said, pausing briefly afterwards, 'I finally honored my promise. I unleashed every vampire my influence could reach against the mortal world, scouring every nook and cranny of this land in search for you. Some time went by and nothing was found. I was almost losing hope, but then Angaron found something.'

Serana wrinkled her lips at the mention. _Angaron has not returned. I can't think of what could have held back that Altmer. He was deadlier than Vingalmo. Unless… Azrael did mention something…_ The thought started forming quite quickly, but she cut it off at its roots just as swiftly. _No,_ she told herself. _Nevermind that. It's probably best to ask him._ She tilted her head very slightly and reopened her eyes. 'Father,' she asked, 'what happened to Angaron? You said he hasn't returned.'

'He has not,' he confirmed, 'and I can't deny that worries me. I have given clear orders that all vampires must cease their activity, and I'd expect obedience especially from a member of my court. He will come back, and he will be put in his place. He is a helpful subject, but he has grown quite fiery in these long centuries. He sometimes can be difficult to control. But, back to the matter at hand,' he said, clearly ending that branch of the story, 'he was the one who led a sizable group of court members and lesser children of the night to the right place. They destroyed the Hall of the Vigilant, and then started searching the area. He acted on his own, as was his preference, while the main group finally found out and explored Dimhollow Crypt thoroughly. It was most unlucky that they had to perish, but recovering you was worth their lives.'

There were few people that could instill and provoke such conflicting feelings in her. On the one hand, she felt finally proud of herself, being so important in her father's eyes. In the end, that was what she had always wanted from the moment she remembered anything. On the other, there was something akin to revulsion that slithered in her head at the mention of someone being sacrificed for her. _I sometimes can't put up with his contempt for the lives of his subjects._ She was not surprised, he was the one who had sacrificed a thousand lives to be granted the gift of vampirism, but she always hoped it would have been an exception, and the last one. Again and again, she was being reminded that that was normality.

Her father was convinced they had died looking for her, and that by some miracle she had still found her way back to him anyway. Part of his belief derived from the fact that she had carefully skipped the part when, immediately after her awakening, she had witnessed the massacre of those last vampires at the hands of Azrael. She couldn't have done anything, she had been caged in ice the whole time, but she didn't think her father would understand it. She had altered the scene when he told her to go to the Dawnguard, telling that it had been Draugrs who had wounded her savior and almost killed him. _Even if I risked it and told him, what would change? We already know it was Azrael who killed all of them. Lokil with all his underlings and all the others, with all their underlings._ Almost everything she had told her father about him, from the mental aspect to the physical one, could be concluded with that mention. That alone was something nobody thought possible at the court. Some even decided to believe that the court members had fought among themselves, instead of admitting that a mortal had slimmed their ranks that much. He had single-handedly killed more than ten vampires in a few hours time and survived. _You're making a mistake,_ she wanted to tell Harkon, _an error too big to be treated as an accident._ But while that bothered her, there was something else she couldn't quite figure out. _You've got me. What do you need a new tool for?_ Azrael, if he could truly control him, was a very powerful underling. What did he need a minion so powerful for?

After a long silence, Serana felt her father's grip on her shoulders losing its tightness. 'And now,' he said, withdrawing the arm, 'we are together again. The ones who started the Volkihar bloodline.' There was a proud note in his voice as he said it. 'Our great plans will unfold as I have predicted, and there will be nothing to stop us.'

She casted a sideways glance at him, smiling but feeling uneasy at the same time. 'So you haven't given up on your plans, I guess.'

'I most certainly have not, my dear daughter,' he said, putting both his hands on the parapet and grasping it firmly. His long nails scratched the stone, screeching faintly. 'You have arrived at the right moment, indeed. But enough about that,' he said, turning away her and looking down at the Dunmer's motionless figure. 'You can go have some more rest. Thank you for your providing the information I needed.'

She gave him a nod, making it look somewhat eager. 'Any time, father,' she said, before letting go of the parapet and balancing. Her limbs felt weaker than when she had arrived there.

* * *

'Would you please tell me, my lady, if your father has finally decided to let the prisoner free?'

She was about to answer automatically, looking for the most discreet way to explain, but then she came to realize what exactly Orthjolf had asked. The comprehension immediately tore her away from the sleepwalking state she had been in for the entire two hours following the talk with her father. She hadn't even realized how lost in thought she had been and how much absorbed in her own feelings she had been. It was as if she noticed the room around her, the light, the sounds, the smells and every sensation for the first time, as if they hadn't existed beforehand.

As the overwhelming amount of new information was handled, more questions began to emerge. And yet more worries. _How does he know…?_ The answer formed independently, using her distant memories to make some sense of the situation. Orthjolf didn't know anything about it, but he had a hunch. His premonitions were very often correct, and he often made those into daring assumptions that either threw people completely off or managed to make them more nervous, giving him more control over the entire conversation to come. Almost simultaneously, something else popped up in her mind. _I wasn't even paying attention to my reaction, I hope I didn't make a stupid face._ She immediately froze her every muscle, but she couldn't understand if any foolish of shocked expression had appeared on her features.

After a moment's thought, everything appeared quite ordinary. Orthjolf had done his usual thing and it had worked. She slowly relaxed and started to smile faintly again, this time with her attention fully to herself and her surroundings. 'I don't know anything on the matter,' she said, looking the man directly in the eyes in search of some movements that might betray his skepticism. She had a question, but she wanted to ease him a bit more before posing it. 'If you were wondering why my father summoned me, it was entirely unrelated. He did tell me that our prisoner is about to wake, so whatever happens, you'll have your answer soon enough. Although, if you allowed me a question…' she said, slowing her voice down. Orthjolf's unresponsive features forced her to be more careful, but now he nodded faintly. 'Why would you think my father's planning to free him?'

The Nord scoffed, his throat producing growling sounds along with it. An ugly smile stretched his thin, deformed lips. 'Your old man hasn't changed, young lady. He is stubborn to a fault.' He was the only one who could afford to say such things about his Lord, because he meant them in a good way. 'If he had decided to kill the mortal, he would have done so immediately. There at the feast, if necessary. He chose to wait instead, for five unending days.' The left corner of his lips stretched even further, exposing the teeth. 'Everyone here knows what's about to happen. No matter what Lord Harkon has told you, finding you was only the beginning of a larger game.'

'You've tried to put me and my father against each other for a lifetime,' she replied, unable to ignore the conspiratorial note in his growling voice, 'and you know it doesn't work. And besides, your reasoning has several weaknesses. Perhaps I'm only part of a bigger plan, that doesn't matter. What does, is that he had no way to know a stranger would bring me back. If he has a need for the outsider, it is something he has thought of recently. So don't try to trick me.'

Orthjolf's ugly smirk slowly faded away from his face, returning his expression to a more neutral one. 'What did you say is the name of the stranger?'

'Azrael.'

'And nothing else? No titles, no family names? Not even aliases?'

'If there are, I don't know it.' She briefly considered withholding the information, but there was no risk involved with spreading it. 'Garan Marethi has helped me in trying to understand something more about him, but we concluded very little. I have no background information on him, and no way of determining how old he is. Garan has written down the fluctuations of his accent, but is still uncertain. He has not been in his homeland for a while and he presumed Azrael to be born and grown up there. He says that something that sounds similar can be found near the city of Blacklight. However, he pronounces just a couple of sounds in a way that resembles the inflection heard around Mournhold.'

The man scoffed again. 'That Marethi knows too much for me.'

'For once, I can concur,' Serana replied with a smile. She had too been quite surprised by the amount of things the Dunmer had been able to recall. She thought that nothing could surprise her after spending entire days with Azrael, but that had been different. It hadn't been a display of acumen or memory, but or great organization in the information. 'Garan truly knows a lot, and he has been a great help in these days. But, in spite of all the things he knew, we haven't learned much. The very name Azrael was unusual to him. He even suspected it could have been a mistake, a bad transcription from an older term.'

'An Elf strong enough to kill a dozen vampires and we don't even know where he comes from,' Orthjolf commented, chuckling lowly and turning slightly to the side.

Serara couldn't help but notice his use of the concept of strength to describe Azrael. She restrained from grimacing, even minimally, but resisting the reaction left a sour taste in her mouth. Orthjolf was obsessed with strength, the form in which it came didn't matter too much. As long as if wasn't magic, he was happy to have it. Having attributed strength to Azrael could mean two things. If he had used that concept willfully, then it meant he had already framed him as someone who was more alike him, despite being a Mer. If, instead, it had been involuntary, it could mean that he recognized in that stranger a degree of power that he wanted for himself. In one word, he desired his strength and probably even envied it. _Whichever it is, it's bad enough. I don't think there's a way for me to know, and I don't even think I want to know._

It wasn't as if she hadn't thought about Azrael's strength. She had, for a long time, and her thoughts had continued right as she came out of the conversation with her father. She still remembered when they had stopped in Dragon's Bridge, how she envied his strength back then. _It's not the same as Orthjolf. He's thinking more of his physical strength maybe,_ she considered, _whereas I looked at his mental resilience._ Nevertheless, she had understood that her envy was empty and dangerous. His strength wasn't meant for her. While it was undoubtedly a resource to have, it probably was something that molded the life of the person having it. From what she knew, Azrael traveled alone, lived alone and did almost everything essential by himself. He didn't need anyone, and his only contacts were the ones who could enhance his life. He presumably wanted some people around him, but he didn't need anyone. He could have done everything on his own. _And that,_ she had realized, _even the simple possibility of doing everything on my own, scares me terribly._ If she hadn't felt the need for everyone, what then? _What will others think of me?_ A great strength, from what she had seen, demands for decisiveness and autonomy; if those aren't met, it shirks into wasted energy. And she was neither of those two things.

Now, a few days later, she had understood. She had recalled one of the more basic principles that guided court life, as well as most of life outside of the castle: everyone is different. There are people that are alike, and there are shared qualities, but she couldn't ask for Azrael's strength. It wasn't hers, it didn't fit anywhere in the person she was. _Azrael himself wouldn't be someone at all, if he lacked his strength. He would know a lot, true, but then there would be someone else doing what he does in his stead. He would be someone different._ She had felt almost conflicted, confused, when her envy vanished from the great deal of emotions she felt in the last days. In that moment though, it didn't feel strange anymore. His might felt all the more unnecessary to her. If she had it, some would try to force her into situations where she would need to use it. _No. I don't envy him that anymore. I don't want it. Not for myself, at least._

Not for herself, true, but she couldn't deny looking for that same strength in other people. There were many different forms of authority, even in her own life, but she had always found out that some people wielded a raw, pure sort of power. Inside the court, Vingalmo held some sway. If you disobeyed him, you would loose his trust and probably some others' too. It was unwise to refuse him. There was a hidden blackmail hidden in his every word. But that was very artificial, unreliable kind of power. Garan, on the other hand, despite proclaiming his indifference towards court intrigue, manipulated everyone through the use of selected information. Offend him, and he would inform the opposite party with something that wasn't known to all. This created dependence on him, but it was very artificial too. It required a great effort on his part to always stay ahead and know everything that others didn't. And, if one day one would come to know exactly how much he knew, that kind of power would vanish into nothingness. Lord Harkon was something different, someone that went closer to exerting raw power. The court obeyed his orders because they knew his anger was something terrible. When he gave an instruction, something in the gut told you to comply. But yet again, there was some habit involved. He was the one giving the orders and everyone obeyed because they were used to. His anger was remembered as terrible, but it wasn't felt. Not anymore. Serana, after a week together, knew that Azrael was different. Although he could be intimidating, he wasn't always. Furthermore, she didn't remembered seeing him angry, not even irritated. He possessed a small part of everyone of the others, and something that rose above. He had a small portion of Vingalmo's kind power, Garan's kind and even her father's. All in more subtle ways, but they were there and they could be used to interpret his authority. But there was something else. _When he said something,_ she recalled, _I immediately did it. It didn't even come to my mind to disobey._

It was something about him as an individual, not only the orders he gave out. It was as simple as realizing how strange the court's reaction had been towards him. Everyone had yelled insults at his lifeless figure at first, of course, but only in public. Her father had fallen prey to that strange sense of enigma, and was about to let him live despite what he had done. Garan, surprisingly, had revealed to her that he was fascinated with their prisoner. He had studied his attire and weapons from a distance and found himself obsessing over him. Now Orthjolf had declared his interest. _And I shouldn't forget myself,_ she thought. _That's the person who could have sent me to my death and that planned to kill everyone I know, and yet I feel conflicting feelings for him._ She couldn't say what it was, she really couldn't, and had the suspicion not even Azrael was fully aware of his own influence. He sometimes acted a lot more aggressively than necessary to get what he wanted. It could have been disregarded as a sadistic vein, but if he had a sort of madness, it was something that went towards coolness and absence of impulses. Indulging in a personal tendency seemed completely out of character.

'Well,' Orthjolf muttered, 'well, I should go.' He turned back towards her. Serana came back to the present smoothly, without any rough transitions like before, and looked at him in the eyes. Some time had passed, a long moment of silence. She hadn't noticed anything of what he had done, but when they looked at each other there was that shared sensation of having been lost in thought for a long while. The man smirked again, making the fangs just blink. 'I shall see you later.'

She smiled back. 'Godspeed, Orthjolf.'

'Enjoy yourself, my dear princess.'

Serana turned back, considering her options while her smile slowly faded away. Among everyone in the court, she could say Orthjolf was to her liking. She couldn't stand Vingalmo, that was one point they already had in common, and probably because of that the Nord had taken the habit to treat her as a person instead of an asset. That was a long story, one that traced back to before her disappearance. In the court, the games never ended, but everyone managed to develop some sort of bond behind the courtesies. The one with Orthjolf was one of the most intense, and probably the most sincere. He was a manipulator too, and he didn't restrain from always trying to get information from her, but there was some sort of hidden code. He was allowed to do that, as long as nothing more poisoned the rest of their relationship. _It's a compromise,_ she thought with disdain, _a concession, a mere lesser evil._ Her craving for intimate connections had been very rarely fulfilled throughout her life. She had managed to forget it somewhat, but that one week with Azrael had made her remember all her craving.

On the ending of her reasoning, she glanced at the stairs. _I could use some more rest, for sure, but maybe I have to see Feran first._ Her legs were still quaking and she still felt quite weak. The feeling that a large part of her strength was still sapped out of her body had been a constant in those days, and although it had retroceded to a manageable level, it was still predominant. Feran Sadri was still giving her blood potions, but he had also came to the conclusion that it wasn't only the toxic blood making her feel so weak. It was something else, something mental. Luckily, whatever had happened, it was clearly getting better with each passing day. Her gaze rested for a moment on the other set of stairs, leading up towards her own quarters. _No, it's better if I get back in my chamber. If Feran wants something, he can contact me._

She walked ahead, still thinking. She was on the left side of the great hall. As per usual, with Feran's workshop so close, she still had the strong doubt that she should go there before going back to her lodgings. However, the Dark Elf would most likely send her away, though. He was almost always busy with some of his research, or telling his apprentice off. He preferred to have the choice of when visiting her, so there was really no point in disturbing him. Still, the doubt remained. It weakened right as she passed by his door, and since he didn't call and didn't make any effort at getting her attention, even the doubt waned in strength. She cast a glance beside her, in the near empty hall, as she stepped in front of the arch leading to the cathedral.

Suddenly, her field of view suddenly became really dark all of a sudden. Black, dark grey and all colors very close to them, with the very slight exception of a shade of faint, barely seeable vermillion red a bit under the height of her eyes. That sight persisted for a few moments, but afterwards her head smashed against something that was very cold and hard. Her shoulder had also hit something similar a few moments before, but she had been too focused on her sight. Now that the head had also been hit, she felt the cool surface and thin and dull edges scratching her face. The impact was strong and, after that single moment of contact, she felt herself thrown backwards, getting a sense of her legs struggling to find a place to stop and find balance again.

A voice. 'Out of my way, you—'

It was only now, stumbling backwards, that she realized what had just happened. Put simply, she had bumped into someone. Someone with a deep voice. A thought tore her mind in two like a lightning bolt tears the sky in two during a thunderstorm. _Azrael?_

–––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––– A Ω ––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––

 _You. It had to be you._

Since he had woken up from that nightmarish slumber nothing had been the same. _In such a way that even this is nightmarish. It's all a waking nightmare._ It was like seeing her for the first time, all over again. Except the first time it had been something of a guilty pleasure, in the literal meaning of the two words. Something strange, forlorn by the others parts of his mind, had felt well upon seeing her. The overall feeling had been lightening, somewhat alleviating. He hadn't indulged in it, because he had something to learn from that overgrown leech, and he had done exactly what he wanted. The sensation had persisted nonetheless, unable to be put down. It was useful to have, and it seemed to enliven every time he thought about her or looked at her. Careful from becoming too reliant on it, he had used it for quite a while.

Now though, it was something completely different. He failed to remember what exactly was different from the first time around, but he knew it. The lightness was completely faded away by a feeling of compression, of the ribs curving and collapsing on themselves, choking the air out of him. _This is what it feels like to suffocate,_ he realized, with crystalline clarity, _and it'll torture me as long as I can't get used to not breathing._ At the same time, even though the familiar sensation of his warm, dark elven blood was almost utterly missing, there was another sort of substance that flowed inside his body, following a pattern that seemed similar to the blood. It was clear to him that it wasn't anything physical. _This is pure energy. Very dark energy. Vampiric one._ Beside the fact that it felt like pure energy, he remembered all too clearly how those had exponentially increased as soon as he had managed to shapeshift. At that, he cut clean the thought. _No._ He had no wish to remember. In that moment, he felt like he was trying to suppress an amount of thoughts that was beyond what his mind could handle. They were seeping in through the cracks in his defenses, coming back and haunting him with renovated vigor and with the wrath of having being sealed away. His every thought seemed to have a life of his own, not that he had lost his.

He moved his eyes slightly down, feeling the strange sensation of the eye globes emitting a eerie sear as they moved down, without any more liquid to water them. His gaze fell on the young woman's face, following its lines and frame as if trying to devour it and store it in the mind in its essence, in addition to memory. The essence of undeath emerged, sometimes. The large eyes with wide, bloodshot, bright red irises and vertical pupils. A white and lifeless skin and an unnatural absence of movements in her face also hinted at that. That didn't ruin her visage, but gave it a queer structure, which he failed to understand. These vicious, unnatural eyes were shrouded by the long eyelashes; above them the thin and fine eyebrows further lessened the alienating effect of her gaze. The nose was small and narrow. The cheekbones were slightly higher than normal, for a Nord. The chin was round and elegant. The lips were red, in stark contrast with the paleness of her skin, and they were thin and sensual. Finally, as if to frame her face, her hair fell down on her back. Obsidian-black, glossy and straight hair. They were significantly shorter than the last time he had seen her. She had cut them.

Performing that accurate observation again did nothing to silence the amount of voices screaming in his head. He was so overwhelmed he struggled to understand which voice was his. _Is any one of these mine, truly?_ He had never identified with any, assuming he was just the observer, but in that moment he could feel his own desperate wish to be one of them, to feel as if some substance was being retained. And desperation wasn't something he was used to, at all. _Despair._ The word had a strange taste now. It caused an outcry, both in the mind and in the chest. Somewhere far, very far, a vice with an ironic undertone remarked that once he had thought of calling his own blade Despair. He knew despair very well. He knew its look in the eyes of the ones he killed, he knew what it did to his enemies, but had thought of calling a blade Despair without knowing how it felt.

It was dreadful.

 _You,_ he thought, casting a freezing glare in the young woman's direction. _You did this._ He brought a hand forward, feeling for her belly and putting the palm on it. As he prepared, the energy seemed to muster to his arm, permeating it with a sort of strength that he had never imagined could exist. It supported his sudden movement as he pushed and smashed her against the wall. He heard her groan dying in the noise of the armor crashing on the rock, but didn't look back. She was alive. For some reason, he wanted to hurt her, not kill her.

* * *

A/N: And so we reach chapter ten, coming back to Azrael. It's a milestone. From now on, I will publish more regularly. I was mainly working on another small book in these last months, and sometimes there was very little time left for _Day Keeper, Night Reaper,_ but now everything will return to normal. I will also revise some of the older chapters. I have read a few and there were definitely too many mistakes. I don't think I'll change anything in regards to the story, in fact I won't, but if half the heavens fall on my head and I decide to do it, I'll let you know.

To the ones who left reviews in these lapse of time, I remember answering personally to all of you and thus I'll say nothing more here. If I haven't answered, I apologize, and I thank you here and now.

From now on, it has truly began. The story takes its turn and there will be no turning back.


	12. Chapter XI: Under the Blazing Sun

Chapter XI: _Under the Blazing Sun_

* * *

It was the jolting that brought him back to reality. It was slowing, becoming more regular. The bumps were further and further away in time between each other. _Why is she…? Stupid animal,_ Azrael thought, shaking his head strongly and baring his teeth. The sharp ends of the long canine fangs scraped the edges of the bloodless lips, leaving short slashes on the lower lip. He smacked his own tongue, to try and get rid of the dry feeling that permeated his mouth, and unthinkingly licked the two cuts. No blood whatsoever had flowed from it. The thin skin of the lower lip was withered and dry, scarred by long signs of dehydration.

Without premonition and with no chance for him to control it, an image shimmered in front of his eyes. An image dating to some time back, although he wouldn't have been able to tell how long. He felt no beard covering his chin and cheeks and a hot breeze hitting him on the lower neck. He didn't have hair as long as he did now. _This is so vivid._ A fleeting thought, timeless and confused, said as it disappeared into the chaos. It was a corpse, charred. The sternum was incinerated, signs of burns were visible on the entire body and there was a shallow, burnt area that was slightly more dipped than the rest of the body's surface. The poor Elf had been killed by a wizard, with a stream of fire that had carved out a hollow in the skin, burning it away. The cinders lying on the ground were probably what remained of that dip without flesh. His face was the very image of pain, with dilated pupils and the tongue bit clean off. Apart from the blood, his lips were dry, scarred by long signs of dehydration.

Again, it was the jolting that brought him back to reality. The sounds of Shadowmere's hooves sticking in the snow were muffled. There was no wind, no other noise whatsoever to interrupt that calm or to disrupt that soft, continuous series of thuds. Now, as the image faded into the piercing light of the day, Azrael noticed that the mare wasn't having problems advancing. If fact, her head was bent towards him, the muzzle trying to touch his leg. She couldn't reach it, but the Dragonborn could feel her slow, cold breathing barely penetrating the joints of the armor. He was just now starting to piece the image together coherently, using all of his senses to make some sense of it.

His eyes wandered on the mare's black hair, following the line of her neck before reaching and noticing her big, round crimson eyes looking at him. _Smart beast,_ he thought, with conflicting feelings. On the one hand he felt a strange lightness, the same he usually associated with something deeply ironic, but on the other there was a stronger and more violent grasp, a kind of disdain that arose from somewhere he didn't know. There was an awful confusion in his head, but one thing was certain. However he felt, whatever he felt, he couldn't change the stronger, underlying sensation on that last hour. _Smart beast indeed,_ he said to himself, _she can clearly see I'm dying._ _And she also knows that my mind has been somewhere else for the majority of this time._

And as he said it, he sensed it drifting off again, into the chaos.

Strength. The unholy, surprising strength of something that is so beyond human that has lost everything that related it to the concept. _An individual is his weaknesses, there is no arguing._ The protruding hand, one moment resting on the surface and the next pushing it hard against the wall. The strength gathers, condenses, it squeezes together into something that is the parody of might. It is its excessive paroxysm. _Who would think that too much of something can transform that very something into its equal and opposite?_ The force that had surged through his arm when he pushed had nothing even remotely resembling control. It was completely out of control, the very essence of madness. It was without a balance of its own, a pointless excess that threatened to overwhelm the very person who was calling forth for its aid. _That's not strength. It's a weakness. A soft spot. A power that needs to be harnessed before being used._ Every fiber of his arm had been imbued and had acted with more strength than necessary. He had been the one to control the blow. He hadn't killed her. He thought he did not have the heart to. Even when she had jumped on him and bitten him, he hadn't thought of killing her. He had his dagger in the belt, it would have been so easy. It was a matter of grabbing it, stabilizing and stabbing upward. He could feel the soft tissue giving way to the metal.

He had decided against it, and now he was somewhere he didn't know. With his head, at least, he knew where he was with his body remarkably well. As soon as he had awakened, he had felt a powerful shift. He had never considered his own attitude towards his body before, but now he realized that he had always considered it as a mere tool, much like a weapon, which needed care and maintenance. He ate the necessary, drank the necessary, slept less than advisable and kept exercising it. He listened to it, fully aware of how powerful and insightful the messages coming from it were. Even when everything lined up rationally, sometimes the body would sent him messages in the form of discomfort, tension, sadness. He had never even dreamed of discarding those; most of the times, they were clues of the biggest pitfalls in his reasoning he could remember.

One thing had been invariable though: his body was a tool. It was a passive conduit through which information flowed and through which he made his ideas and plans reality. He had never thought of it as something active, an idea he was now forced to reconsider. It was as if his own flesh, dead flesh at that point, was trying to rebel against him. It had, in some ways, acquired a will of its own. It had its needs, wants, desires and the entire spectrum of weaknesses and vices that he associated primarily with his mental life. Sometimes, it refused categorically to give him even those basic information, fighting and resisting his will with every bit of energy it had, which was a lot. A systematic analysis of the amount of energy present in his body had suggested him that, even without the unnatural strength given him by his vampiric nature, his body held an amount of vigor he had not even dreamed of. _Why did I have to wait now to realize? Now, when that very energy is defying me?_ The frustration mixed with his other raging sensation, adding even more mental clutter to the utter chaos. There were few others way to put it, and there were probably a number of solutions, but it was as if he had lost every ability to prioritize.

 _If at any point,_ he had realized, _I had naturally learned about how strong the flesh I have on me was, it would have been strange nonetheless. But now, that I find this out when that same flesh is lifeless, it's even more eerie._ He had known about how a vampire's body functions for quite some time now, but he had never asked himself what it felt like to live in one. The question was so far off from what he considered useful that it had not even went by his mind. _I have come close, at times._ He had created a mental map of sorts, where he could understand what different reactions a vampire might have compared to a normal mortal. He had used that scrutiny to great effect when fighting the fiends in Dimhollow. He could generally predict their behavior better, but he had never used that knowledge to think how it would feel to live as an undead.

He knew now that it felt strange. With the life functions on halt, there was a constant tension flooding the entirety of the body. _It turns out, we need to move to stay calm._ Some people might need less movement than others, he was an example, but he constantly found himself breathing when there was no need to, or sometimes he would focus on the heartbeat, only to be reminded that there was no such thing as a heartbeat as an undead. The heart became a useless lump of flesh, activated briefly and thus useful only when imbibing blood. The breath and the heartbeat were the most noticeable, but after a while the complete halt of every known life function became harrowing. No hunger, no noticeable need to sleep, no need to urinate whatsoever and the list went on and on. _I know that one can get used to everything, but how many realize how much we are used to being alive?_ Now that he was somewhat dead, he thought that very little people probably did.

And it didn't stop at the body, because the Dragonborn's mind too felt disrupted. Or rather, destroyed. His lifelong ability and ally, his capacity to concentrate for a nearly unlimited amount of time on a single object, had abandoned him. In its absence, the mind had become restless and agitated. Thoughts stormed through his head instead of swiftly and cleanly flowing through it. While his body rebelled, his mind had seemingly given up and collapsed on him with all its weight. He found it difficult to focus on his surroundings, even. His attention was swept away in such a short time that he couldn't notice much at all. By the time it came back, he had almost forgotten what he was trying to analyze in the first place.

The white color that prevailed on any other tint in the landscape he was traversing had reminded him numerous times of how very tranquil and cool his mind felt until a few days ago. There was always a sense of calm and clarity, the serene awareness that he could have died in that very moment being satisfied with what he had done. Ever since he had killed Titus Mede, a sort of lucidity had started to accompany him. And ever since he had killed Alduin, that had transformed into that cool, tranquil sensation. Other issues had arisen, but they were beyond the point in that moment, because the impression of lacking meaning and purpose hadn't disappeared. On the contrary, it was stronger now more than ever.

In the tempest raging in his mind, where the most terrifying daemons his head had ever created were feasting on the very thing that had created them, his lack of purpose was among the strongest. Part of his sense of despair was exactly that. He was going forward, he sometimes remembered to notice the bumping underneath him, but he had no idea of why. Where was he going? He knew, somewhat, but it was as if only part of his mind knew. Moreover, the why was completely alien to him consciousness. In a way, there were many and there were none at the same time. There were many because every single one of his thoughts had invented from scratch a reason to go to that place, but they were fabricated reasons. Mere stories, delusions. In his few moments of clarity, he had tried to unravel that confusion and find his true motivation, and he had found many and none all the same. The ones he had found the most strange were two, almost opposite in nature, which came from what seemed to be polar opposites in his mind. One was centered around a strong feeling of emptiness, and motivated the journey by arguing that it was the only thing left to do. Azrael was unable to give himself instructions, so Lord Harkon's ones had taken their place. On the other hand, there was a part of his own mind that he had never really explored in his entire lifetime that suggested something different. He had never explored it because, while his every mental capacity was functioning, that would have been something to suppress, something too weak to be accepted. It was a softer, more sentimental side of him. Nameless, forlorn, spiteful, that had seen now its chance to rebel. That part actually wanted to get the Bloodstone Chalice, because in retrieving it he would gain Serana's appreciation.

Before he could throttle that irrational idea right in the back of his mind the moment of lucidity had ended, and he had found himself once again imprisoned in aimless, confused thinking and pointless musing. It was like floating on the surface of a sea of delusions, hallucinations and mistakes. He felt his bond with reality growing weaker, becoming so thin that it could probably break at any moment. The feelings had grown in strength with the passing days, and he didn't know what waited him when it would finally rupture. Madness? Death? Nothingness? None could be discarded. _It would seem logical to be worried of losing one's sanity,_ he had thought the one time he had clearly seen it arise. _And yet, I feel completely apathetic about it. Do I really have so little to lose? Or is my fear submerged under this mire of senseless thoughts?_ The very concept of fear, of that kind of fear, of the fear that is real and motivated and that cannot be put down, was new. If he was afraid, then that fear would be something different, like panic, desperation. It was a terror that couldn't be fought, because its object was inevitable. There was nothing left to do, expect feeling fear. And even that was denied from him.

There was only confusion, chaos and the thirst. _The cursed thirst._

Not unlike the other things that were dragging him deeper and deeper into the chaos, that had also started a few hours after leaving castle Volkihar. It was a minor thing at first, or it seemed like it. Just a feeling, that strange sensation one gets when he doesn't know if he's hungry or thirsty. A very slight dryness in the mouth mixed with a craving to feel something descend down the esophagus. When it happened, he usually drank. So, without thinking too much, he had reached for the flask and had drank a sip. The water would be needed until he reached the outskirts of Solitude, which would have taken a day. He had to measure how much water there was and keep it for later.

But to his own surprise, he had found the water horrible. Its taste was unbearable, so much so that he spit everything he had drank on the ground, causing the blanket of snow to melt and slightly collapse where the liquid had landed. It wasn't long before he reached the conclusion that, of course, he wasn't a living being anymore and didn't need any water. The speed at which his sense of taste had registered the water as bad was impressive, and he had managed to ponder that for a while thanks to his somewhat functioning mind. He even managed to be interested in it for a while.

That bad experience taught him something, something which managed to distract him from the feelings of thirst for a short while. The sensation grew very quickly, unexplainably, and without any reasons whatsoever. It was when passing Solitude by that he had understood what was happening, and he had rather it hadn't happened in that way. It could have been a lot worse in the end, but it had been still difficult. He could trace the greatest loss of his mental capabilities right in that moment. It was twilight and the Sun was setting; he was absentmindedly riding past the city and trying to find the way that lead far from the main road, through the swamps of Morthal. The only segment of the highway he was forced to follow was the one that led from the port to the main gate, but he usually managed to avoid any contact with the people going up and down that slope. He had managed that time as well, in fact he had found only one person walking towards the port, but that had been more than enough.

Suddenly, without any sort of wind that could carry the scent or any other explanation he could give on the spot, a maddening smell of blood reached him. Instinctively, he thought the odor was coming to him by the nostrils, as any other aroma, but closing them with his hand didn't help. As he rode past the man, the scent became stronger, overflowing in his nose, palate and whole head. There was no explanation for this, but he could also see and hear the scent. He saw the man and saw the blood flowing in him, he heard his heartbeat pumping the sweet substance through the whole body. The dryness in the throat became intolerable and all his resolve was simply going in forbearing from jumping at the man's throat, ripping it open and drinking his fill. Gruesome thoughts were racing through his mind.

His body had started rebelling him before, but once the blood got to it there was seemingly no way of keeping it in check. It all revolted at once, drowning him in pain and suffering the likes of which he had felt extremely rarely. It spit against and laughed at his thick skin in matters of that kind. Azrael took pride in his self-control, but that was the ultimate test to it. He felt attacked from the inside, his resistance being torn apart and shrinking into nothingness, leaving him exposed to the cruel voices chanting for his doom. He had spent a lifetime shielding himself from the world around him, mainly by withdrawing from it. He had spent his relatively short lifespan in the effort to avoid being betrayed, only to be destroyed and put down by the only thing he had never thought could turn against him. Himself.

The folly had started then. The day after, in a moment free of the raging flow of suffering and confusion, he had thought about that accident once again and considered that the problem was a counter-intuitive one. He had managed to resist, not to jump at the man's throat and sucking him dry. He had won against his impulses, but that brief victory had depleted all his energy. By the time he had spurred Shadowmere and ridden far away for the scent to disappear, the icy veil which coated his mind had been melted away. Softened and liquefied, and then blown away. His clarity came seldom around, once every few minutes, as if to allow him to glimpse at his own descent into insanity.

He had started to feel his bond with reality getting weaker and his energies starting to dissipate. Once far from solitude, alone and quaking from the fear that thirst had arose in him, he had realized how terribly weak he was. He was hungry and thirsty at the same time, his mouth tasted of blood without having ever savored it. He knew what he needed, but he refused to give in. He had still some food left in his bag, and tried to eat it. Of course, as he knew himself, he had spewed the chewed food shortly afterwards, undigested and untouched. He couldn't eat, couldn't drink and he was also losing the habit of breathing. His body, even while rebelling his will, was still as a stone. It didn't move, it didn't twitch, it didn't get tense. For three decades he had lived with his neck always tense, so much so that it ad to be cracked every once in a while. That was equally true of his hands and fingers. He cracked both of them still, but there was no stiffness in the bones or in the muscles. The body felt still, lifeless. _Because it is lifeless._ It had no way to dispel its terrific energy by moving, as the one of a mortal does, and that only intensified the strength with which it opposed his control.

The journey after the failed attempt at eating had only got more difficult. Defining it with anything, even by saying it was difficult, was hard for him. He had started to feel more and more pain as the day turned to night, but with the increasing suffering came also some relief in the form of forgetting. If anything, his perception was becoming more and more blurred. He lost himself and conserved little to no memory of certain things, at times entire periods of time. It was like fainting, but while remaining awake. He fell so deep down into the chasm of his mind that it was impossible to notice anything else. Once, in desperation, he had attempted to fall asleep. Even that had proved impossible. _It's not vampirism, I've seen Serana sleep many times. It must be my normal wakefulness, brought to extremes._ The insomnia had proved very powerful, enough to keep him awake for the four days and a half already. It seemed he was getting distracted from falling asleep, and his restless mind never stopped.

From what he could put together, the journey through the swamps hadn't posed many problems. He had made that journey five times during the cold season, and Shadowmere knew the way by that point. She had followed the riverside of the Karth Delta and had crossed Dragon Bridge by night, probably without anyone noticing. Azrael only remembered only a brief moment of travel along the riverside, when he had given her a pat on the neck for having continued on her own. The affection he had felt in that moment for the mare was strange, almost alien. Before drifting back into the lethargy, he had briefly considered it without reaching any satisfactory answer. He vividly remembered one moment, a minute at most, galloping in a place that looked like the road a few miles before Dragon Bridge. The third time had been shortly after having crossed the bridge itself.

After that, the mare had followed the road she knew. She followed the river upstream and kept going North until they reached the edge of the inner part of the swamps. She had carefully avoided Morthal and all roads that went through the area, both the main ones and the secondary ones. Of that, Azrael remembered their entrance in the swamp, the reek of cold and rot that floated in the still air of the bog reaching his nostrils attenuated. He knew then that, while he could sense blood from very far away, his sense of smell had deteriorated. The most surprising thing was that, without him telling her to stop, Shadowmere kept galloping. When he had some time to fully realize this, it had been three days of uninterrupted journey without her resting a moment.

There had only been one occasion when she stopped, and only because he ordered her to. In a moment of lucidity, he had commanded her to halt. He felt drained and restless, and wanted to sleep. One of the many times he tried. He had tried on the saddle, but nothing had come of it. He tried again on the ground, his back against a tree, but he only ended up staring into the distance for three hours, his attention lost and consumed by the things tormenting his mind. When he had come to, he had quickly mounted back on and wandered again into unconsciousness shortly afterwards. That stop had been for nothing, and the feeling of helplessness and rage had grow so prominent that it was starting to intertwine with the other parts of his stormy mind.

Shadowmere had quickly returned on the usual route, and the journey across the Pale had proven calm and utterly lacking in surprises. Azrael, in another moment of clarity, had realized with a certain degree of appreciation that the mare hadn't taken the way they had been forced to follow during the winter. Almost three weeks had passed since he had found the corpse on the road leading to Dawnstar, and back then the snow was already starting to melt. Now, it wasn't any higher than a couple of feet, even in those lands. Shadowmere had recognized this and had remained far from any roads, proceeding East with just a couple of miles separating them from the shoreline. The Sea of Ghosts was calm enough, no strong winds blew from its direction and the weather had been strangely good during the journey, thus far.

The moments of clarity in the almost two days that had passed had been few and scattered, and had brought Azrael to a couple of troubling conclusions. He was rather used to moments when the whole reality around seem seemed to shake so strongly that it seemed unreal. He had had his share of moments, minutes, hours or days when his mind had completely gone out of control, fleeing and chancing after itself endlessly in a perpetual cycle of questions and confusion, fears and apathy. His years as a youngster had been full of them, and there had been some in his more mature years. The last one had been after being cursed with the Blood of the Wolf by the Companions. He vividly remembered the pain, the anger and the mental anguish he had felt, and had kept it clear in his mind to prevent such a thing from happening ever again.

It hadn't happened again, in a way. That loss of control over the mind, that charging of energy and failed attempt at discharging it, had been only an extremely short phase of what he was going through. What was happening now was different. The initial chaos had been so overwhelming that his desire to split from his own mind had been granted, in a twisted way. Exception being for the few moments of clarity, he no longer felt anything, thought about anything or did anything. He had successfully separated himself from what was bringing him so much suffering, but at a cost he had never imagined he could pay. _It's not as if I chose,_ he had thought, bitterly, on the very end of a few seconds of lucidity. Afterwards, he had drifted back into the hollowness he had created to escape. There were no more thoughts. No more pain. Not even the thirst. _The cursed thirst._

When split from his awareness, he didn't feel the heat any longer. Of all things, that was the one he had been most eager to forget. The thirst had eaten away at his mind, but the heat was consuming his body. He felt it penetrating the armor, seeping underneath the metal plates and coating his skin, ripping shards of it away in blazing flashes of pain. After all, he was a young blood-starved vampire who was riding in a black armor under a blazing Sun.

Suddenly, without explanation, he reentered in the aware side of his mind. He clearly saw the shape of a tree, a pine-tree with its green needles and white snow covering its top. It was the only plant in a very long stretch of ground. On his right was a hill, coated with snow. One of its sides was a wall of black stone. On his left, the Sea of Ghosts expanded further than the eye could see. The light was piercing and excruciating, as if entering in the folds of the hood and burning his eyes. The thirst ravaged his body. The heat was burning him alive. There was a weakness, a spreading sense of feebleness in his body.

The world was becoming paler and paler with every moment. The pine-tree lost its outline, the other things were soon forgotten. He was feelings a strange sense of imbalance, as if having lost every kind of equilibrium. The cold air came through the junctions of the armor on his back and he didn't feel the saddle anymore. _I'm falling,_ he realized. The impact with the ground was almost unfelt. The head smashed down second, immediately after the left shoulder. A surge of energy filled his limbs for a moment, but it was far too weak to achieve anything. His body contracted one last time before being emptied of all its energy.

 _I'm dying._

* * *

A/N: Ever since I created a outline of Day Keeper, Night Reaper I was curious about how this chapter would turn out. Slower, shorter, very deep, very brainy, approaching an emotional and personal topic with Azrael's colder, more rational approach, thought tainted by the loss of sanity… It's a lot of factors. It's basically about a character going mad, and that's something new for me. A leap from writing someone who can be very broadly described as "all brain and no heart", to an insane individual. It has been interesting, from both a personal and a technical point of view. I think I could fill an essay with these observations, but the aforementioned points are the important ones.

Also, some solace and gratification for those who wished Azrael damnation and hell in the first chapters.

There were a few links to _The Assassin_ here, for those who have read it. And, while we're on that, that group is growing to quite a lot of people.


	13. Chapter XII: Innocence, my Sister

Chapter XII: _Innocence, my Sister_

* * *

The sensation was very weak at first. It almost seemed to come from beyond, from somewhere else than the real place he occupied. But instead of going away, it lingered high above. A serpentine flow of unknowable kind that slithered around near him. It was getting stronger and stronger, creeping closer, as if spreading tendrils that would at some point envelope him. The feeling crawled along, dispersing and giving him the feeling of being shaken violently. It was a smell, a taste and a sound at the same time. The only thing reaching at him from beyond some sort of veil he could not understand the nature of. There was something intense about that sensation, something that he craved immensely. There was life in that scent.

 _Blood._

The solution to the riddle came naturally, too naturally to have been formulated by the mind only. In fact, several things of him had understood it at the same time, in several ways, each warned in their own language. The mind had been, in fact, the slowest. By the time it had waken up to the fact that there was blood in the close vicinity, the rest of the body had already started acting on its own, fiercely independent from every sort of control. There was a harmony in the action which it was preparing to take. While he hadn't fully felt it as it originated, a strong pulse had come from his gut and had spread across all his limbs, as if in anticipation of the great feast ahead.

The perception of the body came back fully in just one moment. He couldn't have hoped to understand or even feel fully all the overwhelming amount of sensation, and thus information, that was being sent. His flesh felt, at least thus far, intact. There had been a clear impulse going to the legs, commanding them to stay down and be the hinge of the movement. Another strong stir was coming from the arms, which were just ready to dart into the air in the direction of the blood. The head, flooded and inebriated with the slinking feelings of life, felt tense and contracted, but intact as well. The neck was vibrating powerfully, as it would serve to bring the head in the blood's direction.

After that meager attempt of examination, the impulse sent by his gust was acted upon without him giving consent. It had been too fast and too strong. It was completely beyond his control. The legs did what they had been told to do and remained down, pressing against the soft surface underneath to aid the hands in their lightning-fast movement towards the air. His fingers gripped something, the ones of his right hand something harder on the surface then those of the other hand. His back and neck surged upwards as well. The last, strong sensation he could clearly make out came from somewhere strange. His teeth had suddenly seemed to gain a heightened sense of touch, sending impulses of the cold air touching them right before sinking into something warm.

After that, there was no more attention left for the singular senses. There was just one thing in the whole perceived world that seemed to have persisted, and that was the explosion of pleasure and vicious bliss. All at once, everything regained its form. Everything around him, alongside himself, sparked and was inundated with new life.

The taste of blood was somehow less intense than before, and even the feelings of the substance in his mouth was unimportant. The fangs were just digging deeper and deeper into the warm flesh, battling fiercely against the resistance of the tissues and lacerating new skin and new flesh to search for more. His hands clawed the surface they were in contact with so strongly that they were close to make it collapse. The arms were shaking violently and hysterically, overflowing with renewed life and unimaginable quantities of energy, which in turn increased the strength of the fingers' grip. An amount of power so big that it could never be controlled was swiftly gushing across the body, contracting it and the releasing the tension in a new surge of might and desire.

After having run through all of the body, awakening again, something began to change in his mind. Forcedly brought to the senses, his reason had been clouded by a thick red mist ever since his fangs had sank into the prey and he had started to drink. The haze was turbulent and growing thicker, until at one point it reversed its motions. It shrank, a lot faster than it had gathered, leaving only emptiness behind. Azrael began to understand something only then, finding himself in the familiar space of his awareness as the emptiness began filling with thoughts. Along with those, a freezing fear crept up on him, somewhat cooling the warm sensation. _What in blazes am I doing?_

The fear proved, for a short moment, stronger that the weakening need to swallow more blood. _Enough._ He pulled back his mouth, feeling the sense of touch fade from his canine teeth and the tremors shaking his arms starting to wane. He attempted to close his mouth shut, but a miscalculation in the timing made him bite raw flesh. It was too late to reassess the movement, and so he drew his face away anyway, barely hearing the sound of the flesh being ripped apart. There had been resistance, but it had been no match for him. There was a new, never felt strength brimming inside him.

He turned his head around and spat the lump of flesh he had in his mouth beside him. As he did it, he felt another impulse coming from something deep within his gut. It was something akin to remorse or guilt, but a more malicious and brutal version of it. _What did you have to spit it?_ it was asking, but in a way that couldn't be explained in words alone. Azrael listened to that whim for all the time it persisted, coming to a rather strange conclusion. _I was too afraid to notice, but I think I liked the taste of that piece of bloodied flesh._

'Azrael?'

That was the first sound that had anything to do with the concrete world. Aside from the taste of blood in his mouth, nearly everything he had felt thus far had been exclusively internal. His eyes were open, but they were not seeing anything specific. Likewise, he hadn't heard anything prior to that voice calling his own name. Even his sense of touch, not considering its extension in the canine teeth, had been mostly silent regarding to what surrounded him. He had very briefly felt a soft surface underneath him when moving his legs, but not much else. The mouth was still flooded with the taste of blood and raw flesh, and he had already noticed that his sense of taste had significantly diminished after his turning. Almost the same went for the sense of smell, which could detect hardly a thing. The only thing he could safely feel was a strange feeling, very similar in form to the scent of blood, that was warning him of something.

Upon realizing his lack of focus, he started paying attention to what was around him. There were a thousand questions to answer. _I'm not dead,_ he thought, only realizing it fully now. He certainly hadn't departed that world yet, because much of what he had already experience was overly familiar. The lingering sensation in the body told a story of its own, though. _I might not have died, but I feel as if I came very close to it._ The dead flesh still attached to his bones irradiated a unique, primitive kind of incredulity. _And,_ he thought a moment later, _my mind feels a bit clearer._ That was another things that could not be argued. Even though all the questions he had generated a great deal of mental noise, he was able to reason clearly and to focus sharply on a single things at the time. A subtle sense of gratefulness arose at the thought. _Oh yes, you never realize how much something is dear to you until you're on the verge of losing it forever._

He turned his attention to the sounds around him. There weren't many, only a series of distant noises. It almost sounded like the far echo of a voice, its echo still lingering. _For a voice to retain that amount of reverb,_ he reasoned, _we must be indoors. In a series of tight spaces or rooms, most likely._ He couldn't hear any other sounds, and that single one was constant and almost always the same. _One person talking,_ he concluded, _with an even tone, a fair distance away. However, that voice from before was way closer. Whose tone was it?_ he asked himself, simultaneously doing one last check if there were any more noises he hadn't paid attention to, but no. Everything else was quiet, and the answer to his last question was probably best answered by looking around.

Brining the attention to his sight, he first noticed the light. It was strange, unnatural. It was of an igneous color, between yellow and red, but that wasn't the strangest thing. The tint was only slightly noticeable, because mainly the real colors were preserved. What was strange was that part of that light seemed without a source, or being way too bright for the few sources there were there. He quickly spotted the only two things that could give off light, and they were a few candles above him and another one on the floor a few paces from him, against the wall. One solution, albeit strange, was the logical one. _A vampire's sight is documented to increase the effectiveness of someone's vision in dark areas. I didn't know it acted involuntarily, however. It's vaguely amusing that I haven't been able to notice until now._

With that out of the way, he was beginning to recognize some objects around him and piece the image together. He had his head turned to the right, that he had sensed before, and there were a few things in front of him. And above. Above was an iron bar with three upward extensions, each holding a lit candle of bright white wax. The rod was nailed to the wall in between the cracks. It was stone, the stone of a mountain excavated from the inside. Further on, a few paces from him and next to that other candle, there was a small piece of wooden furniture with a few papers, a quill and quiver and a couple of fat coin pouches laid on its surface. Right beside it, hanging from another rusty iron bar, was a bone white banner with red lines along the sides and with a black heraldry in the middle. The black shade left by a bloodied hand.

 _The Dawnstar Sanctuary,_ he understood. _My chamber, judging by the objects. Exactly as I left it. Now, the voice…_ The options were very narrowed down now, and they pretty much were restricted to the members of the Brotherhood. He could remember very little of the voice that had called his name, but there were two things. Firstly, there was only one Brotherhood member who called him by name and, secondly, there was that strange feeling. Almost certainly related to his vampire powers. _A vampire can feel another vampire._ The options narrowed down to one. _Babette. Of course._

The situation seemed rather clear now. He remembered vaguely that, upon falling from the saddle, his right foot had remained suspended in the air. _It wasn't a distorted perception. My foot was stuck in the stirrup._ Shadowmere knew the way to the Sanctuary and had dragged his unconscious body all the way to the secret entrance into the Brotherhood's haven. It wasn't clear what had happened immediately after, if the neighing had made some of the Dark Siblings curious or if one of them had merely stumbled outside by accident and found the Listener's body outside. Babette had then brought him to his own chamber, still cataleptic, and had brought him fresh blood. The only thing that could have reanimated him. It all seemed rather linear. The events and the outside clues lined up perfectly. What didn't was his internal world, but that would have to wait. He knew once again how to prioritize, and his internal anguish could wait a little longer.

He turned his head around, to the left, where the voice had come from a moment before. He moved very carefully at first, wary of moving stiffened muscles too fast, but quickened the movement after a moment. He fully expected his body to be sore and tired after that long comatose state, but that didn't seem to be the case. None of the things that allowed him to move ached anymore. It moved thanks to the otherworldly energy flowing in him and in minimal part thanks to the blood he had just imbibed. He could feel his heart beating, extremely faintly, and his veins barely tickling. _The same things happened to Serana after drinking blood, so I imagine this is normal. Some texts did detail a partial regain of normal life functions for a few hours after blood consumption._ Regardless, he wasn't tired. His neck didn't crack and the muscles weren't throbbing.

Upon turning completely to the left, two distinct things caught his attention. There was Babette sitting on the side of the bed, which wasn't surprising. Her legs dangled down the side bedstead and she leaned on her left hand, lain very close to his side. Her hair had been skillfully combed in an elegant braid and she wore a clean red dress with grey framings and the Brotherhood's black hand embroidered on the chest. Her face was almost blank, but the lips were tight and there was a feeble spark in her eyes. She was worried.

Azrael, knowing his face was fully exposed, did his best to hide a grimace. _I can't stand people who are worried about me._ The intensity of the thought was complementary to the strength of the emotion, which was a sudden flow of shame and humiliation instead of the quiet signal of antipathy he would usually feel. The feelings had almost emerged on his face and it had cost him some effort to conceal it. That wasn't normal, not for him. He was in no way used to all those sensations reaching him. That would have been analyzed later too, because they were probably a sign of a bigger issue. _As if they were not big enough on their own,_ he thought disdainfully, trying to focus on the other thing that was lying right beside him.

It wasn't anything unexpected, but he had not imagined it as bad as it really was. He vividly remembered sinking his teeth into something warm and soft mere seconds ago, but he had no precise idea of what it had been until now. Right next to Babette, who didn't seem disturbed by that sight in the slightest, was the corpse of the one Azrael had drank from. It was a young boy, no more than twenty-five years judging by the skin. Short blonde hair covered his head and the shadow of a beard gave his cheek a slightly lighter color. A thick gag had been pushed into his mouth, but not by force. _Strong biceps, thick back muscles_ , he observed. The young man wore a worker's shirt, now stained with blood near the shoulder. _A local miner,_ he concluded, _but how did he arrive here?_ Abduction seemed quite strange, especially since there was no way to guess what time of day it was. There was second, more probable option however. _Babette could have enthralled him. That would explain why the gag was put in his mouth so smoothly. No signs of torture that I can see, and the skin seems still dry from the cold._

Everything suggested that the miner had been beguiled by Babette and led there less than a few hours before. There was nothing else that Azrael could see that could point at something more precise, without counting that the huge laceration on the neck was the most noticeable thing by far. _It looks just like that corpse we found at the Hall of the Vigilant._ The fang marks weren't even visible anymore. There was a whole piece of flesh missing from the throat, the skin ripped open and the flesh tore away. There was a hole in its stead. The blood had dripped on the neckline and was splattered on the shoulder. The skin had taken an extremely pale, almost sallow color.

'Azrael,' Babette said from right beside his view, 'look at me.' Her voice was somewhat tense, and she fell into a tense mood very rarely. As he shifted his gaze to meet the pain of bloodshot eyes that were looking at him, Azrael noticed her slight stiffness. 'How long,' she asked, the tone firm and unusually serious, 'has it been since you've last drank blood?'

 _I don't like her tone,_ he thought, but most importantly he didn't recognize his own pattern or thought. It was as if he was always looking for an escape. He focused back on reality, holding the girl gaze resolutely. That too was something to be reflected on later. 'I had never done it before,' he answered, preferring to observe rather than correct his impulse to keep silent. _It would seem normal to answer the question so that she can understand. Now she's forced to ask it in a different way._ That was unlike him, even in his own eyes.

As rather predictable, Babette gave a nod and reformulated. What was strange was her complete lack of a reaction. 'How long has it been since you've been turned, then?'

'What's Masser's current phase?'

'It's waxing, since yesterday.'

Azrael noticed only upon beginning that banal calculation that in the last few days, until the Solitude incident, he had no longer paid attention to the moon phases. _It was something so habitual, I thought I would have kept doing it nonetheless._ But as habitual as it was, he had not paid any attention to it. He had to quickly retrace to the evening when he had encountered the man outside Solitude. _That makes it… four days. If Harkon told the truth, which it seems like it, I have remained unconscious for five days. That makes it…_

'Ten days, roughly,' he answered, inflexibly. Still, there was something deeply wrong. _That's my tone, my voice, I can feel it. But I'm simulating calm now, I'm not calm. I'm restless. And all that anger? Where has it gone?_ He had not smashed Serana into the wall on a whim, he was wrathful when he had done it. The hard part had been controlling himself as to not kill her. That wasn't not a kind of anger that went away easily, but it had nonetheless disappeared. In its place, there were other, more irritating things.

'Ten days,' Babette echoed, shaking her head. Her eyebrows were raised in an expression that was both mocking and scolding. 'A normal vampire has to feed after four or five. One such as you, because I feel you're somehow different, can't go beyond a week. You were out in the sunlight, blood-starved, and so soon after the turning.' Now she was the one with troubles controlling her expression. She was baring fangs and the skin was tensing even more on the pretty, body face. It was one of those moments when her appearance completely failed to match her character. 'What in the Void were you thinking?'

Every time his lips parted to utter a word, he tasted the blood left in his beard. That rendered talking even more unpleasant than it already was. 'I don't know. For the last few days I haven't been able to think about anything or decide anything.'

'Something has happened while searching answers, hasn't it? I was right, your arrogance was indeed your undoing.' Azrael was quite used to hearing criticism in her voice, but that kind of worry was something entirely new. 'You've become less strange on normal standards, but a lot more so when compared to the you I know. Mainly, you're not answering my questions. Tell me what happened. Something must have.'

Azrael tried to breathe in, only to end up feelings flustered at the thought that he wasn't breathing. A strong tension was running across his body and, once again, he wasn't finding any way to release it. _I'd really need a long breath before beginning this story._ 'I won't bore you with the details,' he started, excusing himself preemptively for not going too deep into the story. 'I met with the Dawnguard and got what I needed. I followed their most promising trail and found the thing the vampires were ravaging the land for. It was deep within a very ancient crypt. Not very far from where the two of us met, incidentally. The vampires were already there and I had to fight my way through, but I reached their objective before they did. The precious thing was a woman, sealed away for millennia. You know about her, actually. She was the Lord's daughter the dead vampire spoke about in the burned Hall.'

'Oh, yes,' she said, nodding. 'I remember. What do you mean by sealed away?'

'She was enclosed in a stone monolith while under the effects of a powerful stasis.' He mentally followed the mechanism's hypothetical patterns of function before explaining them. _Did Serana know how that apparatus functioned?_ He had never discussed it with her. 'To my understanding,' he continued, 'a powerful spellcaster enchanted the construction that protected her prison. There was a very highly condensed amount of magicka flowing through the rock, but it was turbulent. The mage infused the mechanism with the magic needed to make it function, but rendered that same force a nature that was so unstable that it would have numbed everything in the vicinity. That woman was right in its middle, under the full force of the dazing effect. She was a strange sort of slumber when I released her.'

Babette looked at him for a moment as he finished the sentence, her eyes sparkling with her special kind of inquisitiveness. 'Did you trust her? A complete stranger, that belonged to the opposite faction nonetheless?'

Azrael felt his body tensing. _How does she know?_ She didn't know, that was clear, but something had suggested her something. He very quickly tried to forget about it, placing the control of his muscles above all else. _However it happened, she's going to know the truth if she sees me becoming tense._ 'No, I didn't,' he answered, feeling something pressing on his throat. 'I couldn't know what could happen if I did. She proved harmless, however. First because she was still numb and afterwards because we established a silent deal. However,' and the pressure on his throat slightly increased, 'there was one point when we had to slay some more vampires on the way out. I incapacitated her, I hadn't come all that way just to be stabbed in the back, but when the fight was over the situation was reversed. I was wounded and nearly dead while she was alive and well, and she didn't kill me.'

Babette raised both her hands, signaling him to stop. 'Wait,' she said, interrupting him come the end of the sentence. 'Despite you claiming it would have been short, this is turning out to be quite long. It's nighttime now. How about we go outside and continue our chat?'

Azrael couldn't find any description, explanation or reason that would aid him understand how he was feeling. The crushing sensation as she pointed out that that was turning out to be a detailed story was completely unknown. He didn't know if it was because it was strange for him to say something and not sticking to it, or because it was the specific state he was in that rendered him so excessively sensitive. _What's wrong with me?_ The thought was accompanied by a creeping and lingering feeling of weakness, spreading all across his body. It was the thing that contracted the most with the uncontrolled, unnatural strength that his barely beating heart pumped in his limbs. He felt powerless, without any control over the present moment. But worse, he felt the absence of his assurance, that special element that allowed him to plan. _Now, everything seems accidental and unsystematic._

To make matters even worse, there was something deeper. It was something more familiar, but that kind of familiar that makes it more dreaded. Beside feeling powerless, he also felt physically small. _Babette is half my height, by the Three, and I almost feel like she's bigger and stronger than me._ It was familiar because he had already experienced it a few times in the years past, and every time in correspondence with a great deal of suffering. _I suppose my near death does count,_ he thought, but the irony didn't lighten the heaviness and didn't dissolve the restlessness. If anything, it increased them. A new surge of tension was accompanied by a thought, mixed and coalesced with frustration. _There must be a solution to this._

'Fine,' he said, in an even tone. He moved his fingers so that they would grab the wooden frame of the bed. 'Let's go.'

'We'll have a walk on the seashore,' she said, jumping down on the floor and smoothing her dress with her hands. 'Oh, Azrael,' she added after a moment, looking at him while adjusting the sleeves, 'wash your face before we go. Your beard is soaked with blood.'

* * *

He didn't know whether Babette actually planned it or if she was completely oblivious to it, but her idea had actually been good. He leaned more towards her being unaware. The little vampire had something in her that allowed her to do great things without thinking too much about them. That trait of the little girl had not left her despite the three centuries of life. She had largely managed to grow without getting old. Azrael had always put some degree of trust into her initiatives. While rarely carefully crafted and refined, as his were, they were always enjoyable. That time was no different.

The seashore was barren and bleak, the clouds shrouding the moons and leaving only small areas of the sky clear. It was its simplicity that had always fascinated the Dragonborn. Long ago, one of the two other Dunmer he lived with had remarked that he made up for his lack of sensitivity towards others with an uncommon appreciation of all things that were symbolic. Although still rather unsentimental about it, he really could grasp the elusive glamour of a landscape, a sunset or even the patterns of someone's face. He was drawn towards nature because of his capability to see the most striking things where most saw absolutely nothing.

With he had realized with time was that there was something consistent with everything he came to like. Not differently from that seashore, all desolate and glum things had the strongest degree of allure on him. It had always seemed paradoxical and contradictory that someone like him would be able to appreciate those things. _But it is still sensible._ He drew out the worst from what was considered good, and he likewise could draw out the good out of all the things everyone would consider bad. That seashore, sterile and harsh, was not unlike the Throat of the World and the steppes near Blacklight, covered with colorless ash. They were hostile, but at the same time they stood lonely and strong. There was a sadness, a sense of despair that seemed to seep from the very earth in those places. He didn't know if there was something that resonated with those feelings or what else, but he felt tranquil.

That was why he liked the seashore. And that night, a night that was clouded and dark, he found himself appreciating his own curse. The dull grey of the fog sparkled with colors he had never seen before. The sand glimmered, reflecting lights so far he couldn't even gaze at its source. The waves crashing against the shore, shining of shades so vivid he could not name all the colors he saw. _I have always liked the night,_ he thought, _but I never realized it could hide such splendor._ He felt his eyes sparking, drawing energy from deep within, and enhancing his sight. A less perceptive observer might have not recognized this, but the night was not brighter. He simply could see the darkness.

'What happened in between? You haven't told me a lot of things.'

Babette's words brought him away from the sweet sorrow of the stark landscape. _Something's not right._ He couldn't help but think about it over and over. The thirst had withdrawn, his sanity had been almost entirely restored, but there was still something deeply wrong. It wasn't as if something had disrupted a previous order either. The dreading feeling was another. That shock, the complete insanity that had been eating away in the last few days, had merely torn apart the weak equilibrium which he had built with time. _Have I really been living in a trance? And if so, for how long?_ That would have been the key to solving the problem, but it was a question that had no answer. What was even stranger, he didn't want one.

That was why he was withholding information. 'I'm not willing to talk about any of it,' he said.

'And here we go again,' groaned the girl, her voice filled with exasperation. 'I don't even know why I'm upset,' she said, shaking her head, 'I knew we would reach this point. In between you leaving that crypt and you winding up here something substantial has happened.'

'How would you know that?'

The girl spun on her feet and looked at him, her eyes directly into his despite the difference in height. Azrael had just the time to briefly examine the main lines on her face. _She's furious._ 'It's so obvious, by the Void!' she growled, her fangs appearing and shimmering weakly. 'You come back from a hunt against vampires, now a vampire yourself and you arrive here on the brink of death. A death you could have avoided. It's always been difficult dealing with you, but you always had the redeeming quality of having a solution for everything. Now even that is gone.' Her face was even more contracted now, but Azrael didn't feel his usual curiosity or slight scorn at that outburst. Instead, he was feeling terrifically uncomfortable. 'Let me spell this out for you, because you seem to have not understood yourself,' she concluded, eyes flaring. 'You tried to kill yourself.'

'Why would I do that?'

'You should tell me that!' she replied angrily. 'You're denying me exactly the pieces of this story that would allow me to at least give you a hint. Right now, you're the opposite of the person I know. Not only you're not looking for a solution, but you're keeping me from helping you find it. That can only mean that you are scared of it. But why? I know you for someone who isn't scared by any truth. You, who have time and time again shown to value knowledge above anything, now resist it?'

'Yes, I am resisting.' He answered, and he felt something in his chest crack, as if one of his ribs had been snapped. 'I need to defend myself against a great deal of things in this world. I just didn't know that knowledge was in the picture as well.'

He looked briefly at her. Her eyes were glowing as if blazing with dragon fire. 'You're raving.' Azrael caught something else in her gaze, but didn't recognize it immediately. 'You're putting up new walls between you and the problem, stubbornly refusing to notice that the issue won't simply go away. What are you waiting for, for it to fade away? For someone else to solve it for you? You're behaving like a child! I can understand you having a problem, but I can't fathom you hiding from it.'

Azrael looked away from her. 'Things change,' he muttered under his breath.

'And for the worst, by Sithis! You know what is surprising me most of all?' Having said that, she paused. She waited for a moment, but continued soon after. It was clear he wasn't going to guess. 'Every time we have one of our discussions, even when we heavily disagree on something, you always defend yourself. I'll admit, it's difficult for me to debate with you because you can reason your way out of almost any corner I force you in. Even when what you say isn't what I believe to be right, you always convince me that it's the best way to do whatever we're talking about. And now? You're being elusive. You don't defend yourself.'

'I've never cared of others' opinions about me, except when it is beneficial.'

'You see what I mean?' she asked back, and Azrael understood at once. 'I know you're not stupid. You understood what I was asking and said something completely different. Where's your taste for intellectual sparring gone? If I didn't know you I would assume I'm talking to a complete icebrain.'

'Insult me if you will, if won't change anything!'

He didn't see, but he felt something getting a hold of his gauntlet and dragging him down. He imagined she had gripped it and pulled him closer. He caught a brief glimpse of her eyes once again. 'I'm just trying to help you!' she screamed.

'I don't…' _Need any help,_ he wanted to say, but didn't find the strength for it. The grip around his throat closed harshly and suddenly, leaving him choking. That feeling was faded, after those last few days in which he had had not need to breathe. Regardless, he didn't manage to finish the sentence. Not only that, but merely trying to consumed all of the will he had left. When the words didn't come out he struggled, he clenched his fists and tried to force them out of his throat, to no avail. They would come out. He felt his legs quaking faintly.

For a moment he felt like he had lost his balance. _What's happening?_ That question kept echoing through his head as he used his arms to remain on his feet, while simultaneously looking for somewhere to sit. There was a small moss-covered rock, eroded heavily on the side where the tidal waves struck. He put a hand down and leaned on it, slowly sitting and giving careful attention to his equilibrium. He felt as if he could fall to the ground at any moment. Only as his back became less tense and he felt he had his balance he let go of the boulder. _What's happening?_ He snapped his fangs in the attempt to discharge some tension and brought both of his hands to his face.

A complex reasoning outlined and then was executed quickly in his head. Its result was important. As he decided to be sincere, he immediately felt some determination coming back to him. 'It's not vampirism, is it?' he said, voicing the doubt for the first time. He had always hoped, and had clang to that hope for too long, that what he was going through all was the curse's doing. Somewhere deep within he knew that wasn't true, but for once he needed confirmation from outside. 'Everyone I've encountered thus far was willing to sacrifice the unimaginable to have what I have now. I can't believe that all of them were willing to undergo this.'

'Of course they would not be willing, and of course this is not vampirism's fault.' The girl's voice was remarkably softer and calmer. There was a lot of relief in it. 'The first days are difficult, but we've had different experiences. For me, the infection took hold little by little, whereas you woke up a full vampire. Trust me, you were spared the worst part, but I can't deny that it must have been a shock to face every change at once.'

'What is it, then?' he asked, slowly removing the hands from his eyes but without lifting the eyelids. 'What is happening?'

Babette didn't immediately answer. Azrael sensed his own hearing enhancing significantly in the attempt to catch any noise that could have told him something. He not only didn't resist the reaction, but stimulated it further. His ears, now extremely receptive to anything that reached them, perceived a weak vibration. The sand was being moved. Her shoes sinking in between the grains were making that noise, and every new instance was closer than the one before.

There was a louder noise right before she spoke again. She had sat on the ground, right beside the rock where he rested. 'I'm nearly three hundred years old.' The girl's voice was pensive, as if lost in thought. More specifically, in memories. 'I have seen the Brotherhood on the verge of annihilation multiple times and I have long been its oldest, most respected member. When you arrived a year ago, I thought you were like everyone else. You would come and you would go, as many people have in my lifetime. I reconsidered that the very moment I had the opportunity to talk to you in person, and I have not changed my mind since. Despite having a sixth of my years, you proved wiser and more farsighted than anyone in our organization's recent history. I thought I had seen it all, and yet you managed to teach me some things. Its one of those that helps me now.'

To his own surprise, Azrael sniggered faintly. 'That was quite the premise.'

Babette laughed too, with her childish sound. 'Wasn't it?' she said, her tone drifting back to a serious one shortly afterwards. 'It was when you stopped in the Sanctuary for the last time after heading to Whiterun to capture that Dragon. You told me that every problem that seems insurmountable, your own words, isn't one problem at all but an blend of several issues. I wasn't completely unaware of the idea, but I had never heard it put so accurately. That is precisely why now I think you're facing more than one problem.'

'More specifically?'

'I can only guess. You don't open up much at all, so it's difficult for me to say.' She was silent for a moment longer, at the end of which she made a curious humming sound. 'I can tell you what I definitely see clearly in this moment. Before, you always appeared quite keen on not letting some things reach you. You gave away the impression that you had something to hide. That is nothing strange, mind you,' she said, a giggling sound in her voice. 'Most people on this plane do. However, your need for it has been quite unusual and it has become stronger and more marked ever since the issues with the Dragons have ceased to bother you.'

Some connections had started assembling in his head while she was talking, but that last element made the network connect and spark to life. _Good girl,_ he thought, _you gave me the time coordinates for that one riddle._ He had been unable to find it, despite the several minutes of thinking he had put into it. Given the specific solution, the moment might have not been as important as the event that made it start. That short timespan she was talking about had been full of changes and decisions made. _I tied up every loose end that I can remember before the winter. I reorganized the operations in the Guild and gave the first hit to Maven. I concluded unfinished business within the Brotherhood and finished training the new members. Then I went to the College._ He stopped there, letting go of the train of thought. That was enough. The moment when he had headed for the College was the first he associated with a strange sensation. The memory was unnaturally vivid, as if something particular had happened. _Something internal, though._

'After that,' Babette continued, perhaps not even noticing his moment of absence, 'you grewn… droopy. Or better still, you became a bit contradictory. There were moments when it seemed nothing at all mattered to you any more, and others when you were frantically searching for something to do. The last two times you were here you even refused to stay here for the night. Also, the others might have not told you, but we found really strange that you offered to complete the two contracts you got two months ago. You seemed restless, always traveling here and there despite the snow covering every road. It was the heart of winter and you were riding all across Skyirm, doing this and that. There are people who do that, but you didn't seem one of them. You're not dutiful, you're not obsessive about any of the things you did, and you were not worried about anything related to them. It almost seemed like you were fleeing from something. That left us with very few reasons, and I still haven't figured out.'

'I think I have, though,' he whispered, having to hold on to his thoughts in order to continue them later. 'I can't really understand what the cause was, but there are two strange things. Firstly, I think I know what I was fleeing from. Secondly, I only now remembered how largely unaware I was of my own motivations. The only thing I can clearly recall was the endless reasons I gave myself for going at the College. Irrational ones, if I observe them now. I did happen exactly when they had need of someone like me, but I couldn't have known.' That all made sense to him.

'Right,' said Babette, with a thoughtful tone. She wasn't fully convinced or was having trouble keeping up with the reasoning. 'So what's your point? Why were you doing that?'

Azrael pondered his words with more care than usual. He chose each one carefully, not to make it sound in any particular way but because he never thought he'd have said something like that about himself. 'I think I was trying to distract myself. To ignore something that was also present in that moment. I can't know if the similarity holds completely true, but I may have been doing to myself what I was doing a moment ago with you. Trying to sidetrack you and throw you off the subject. I was fleeing from myself, or a part of me.'

He felt more calm now. He had never fully understood how much that precise combination of the roles made him more certain. Now that he was the one doing the mental work and Babette was the one trying to keep up with him, he felt more tranquil. _I've been inside a thousand cages,_ he thought, _and I have never realized._ In that moment, he was trying to continue his thought but he was not sure of what route to take. He waited for Babette to vocalize the same question he had before continuing.

'So, what I take from it is that the strategy doesn't work anymore. But why?'

'Something,' he said, stressing the word and pausing briefly after it, 'managed to infect and debilitate the very weapon I was using to apply that strategy.'

'Vampirism,' murmured the girl. 'So this is where it fits. You were using your mind to stay away from the thing that you wanted to stay away from, keeping it active by doing other things.'

'Precisely. And the moment I woke up turned into a vampire, my mind started running away from itself.' That fit into everything that had happened in the last few days. In the moments of lucidity, it wasn't strange for him to think of himself as split between two parts. One that held all the suffering, meaning the one where he returned in those periods of clarity, and another where he sought refuge for the last majority of the time. The one he typically thought of as completely empty. And there was another thing. 'Furthermore, vampirism took away all the things that reminded me I was still alive. I couldn't breathe, my heart wasn't beating. I really felt as if I had lost the will to live.'

'Which isn't new.' Babette's voice was faintly wily. 'You have said that before. When you told me of your departure from the Crypt, you said that same exact thing.'

He didn't have any will to remember that. When he had said that, it had been on impulse. He needed to say it, and had resorted to saying that in Dragon Tongue to keep Serana from asking questions. He had told it to Babette, and again, he didn't rightly know why he had. _It's as if I need or like to tell it aloud, but that makes very little sense. It didn't make any before a few moments ago, though, so it can be considered an improvement._ He hadn't found a link with that feeling for all that time. When he lay, wounded, there in Dimhollow, he had indulged in that thought only because he suspected there would be no awakening. Between waking up again to everything he was leaving behind, it was perhaps better to die there. He wasn't even mortally wounded. He thought Serana would have stabbed him in the heart. _That was the logical thing to do. I almost regret pointing her at the Dawnguard._ That last dying wish was supposed to be vengeance exacted. A last satisfaction before he left this world.

'I did say it,' he whispered, slowly lowering his hands and exposing his face. 'I was convinced I would have died there and then, and I didn't much care. I was quite surprised when I awoke.' His mind instinctively and unexplainably turned to Serana, the way she sat in front of him during that conversation and the strange feeling of having her so close as she searched about his possessions. 'I even treated her gently for a moment afterwards,' he finished, noticing but choosing not to react at the placid note his voice had acquired.

In spite of everything they had discussed, there was one thing in particular that was leaving him shaken. He was in the face of an enormous opportunity to learn something substantial about himself and the truth about a good deal of recent events. But even that wasn't enough to wake him and make him feel alive. _And it's not vampirism. On that I agree with the eerie girl._

'There's probably a lot more to go through,' Babette said, from beside him. Azrael turned his head around slowly and looked at her straight in the eyes. They were, at last, calmer than when he had seen her when he woke up. Her voice backed up his hypothesis. 'You are probably best on your own. We've knocked down the wall, now it's your turn to explore what's beyond. You're quite good at unraveling mysteries.' She smiled faintly, playfully. 'I have no doubt you'll manage this one, too, but I'll take full advantage of your moment of weakness and give you some advice that you wouldn't listen to otherwise.'

The Dragonborn exhaled slowly. He stopped for a moment right afterwards, noticing something unique. He usually breathed out in that way when he felt disgusted by something, and that act of blowing the hot air out of his mouth had become habitual. Now there was no reason to do it, since he didn't breathe anymore, and that one time he was not disgusted. He was merely feigning disgust. 'Fine,' he said, after having completed the evaluation, 'let's hear it.'

'There are a lot of people in your network that owe you more than you think. Take your associates at the Guild, for example. You think that you have brought them wealth again and that by working for you they're repaying their debt in full; you think you're even with them. What you maybe don't realize is that you're giving them something more. Purpose, direction, a strong leader to rely on. You're not one who needs those things, so you might not realize, but they do. They have a debt that goes beyond material wealth, and they would be happy to repay it. So, wherever, whenever you need someone to confront, remember that they are there and they're willing. Is it clear?'

'It is. Anything else?'

Babette licked her lips and then she scratched them with her fangs. 'It's not easy to explain,' she said, half-closing an eye. 'The thing is, you always live for yourself. When you drift into sleep and ask yourself what you've done in one day, everything tends to center around you. If you've not done something good for yourself, then the day was wasted. Now… the moment that idea is brought to the extremes, it becomes more dangerous. The moment inside Dimhollow is an example, as is your cavalcade from Solitude to here. You felt like there was nothing more for you and so you were ready to give up everything, even life. Am I right?'

'Nearly. Go on.'

The girl took another brief pause before continuing. He couldn't guess if it was because she couldn't find the right words or something else. 'Well, if that ever happens again, I want you to remember something. Your egocentrism is your strength, unquestionably, but it requires a lot of resources on your part, which you don't have right now. The next time you think there's nothing left for you and there's nothing left to do, remember the people around you. The Brotherhood needs a Listener, the Guild needs a leader, the College needs an Archmage and this land still needs someone who solves problems in unconventional ways. Right now, as much as you're suffering, there's surely people somewhere who are counting on you to solve this problem for them.'

The Dragonborn's gaze emptied and became hazy, as he focused all of his attention on understanding that idea. He felt something akin to a sour taste in his mouth, and this was a clear sign of true distaste. _It does make sense on a purely rational line of thinking,_ he thought, now able to grasp the concept but unable to understand it or share it in any way. 'I'll be dead,' he calmly replied, not antagonistically but with genuine curiosity. 'I won't know what happens to you. And whatever happens, no matter how many times I save those fools, there'll be something new. What difference does it make it if happens today or in two centuries' time?'

Babette scoffed teasingly. 'May the Void take me if I don't envy you that logic,' she muttered. 'Your life is so simple! It's difficult, I know, but very simple.' Her gaze rose to the clouds in the sky, her lips pursing. 'I don't imagine you to change that, that idea is probably what has allowed you to overcome all the challenges you've had to face. However, just think of us if you ever find yourself doubting. Even if you feel like there's nothing more and there's no meaning left at all, remember that. Do the irrational thing and continue to fight.' Upon finishing, her eyes sparked brightly for a short moment and a sly slime made its way on her lips. 'There I have it!' she exclaimed. 'When you have that sensation, that nothing's important anymore and you might as well just let go, remember that it's irrational!' She stressed that last word. 'Irrational, by Sithis!'

Azrael looked at her, his amusement surpassed by his curiosity. While that was something important, there would be a lot of time to think about that during his journey. What he was finding new was that he had finally understood why Babette sometimes was so unexplainably overjoyed when she managed to explain something to him. _She treats it as a challenge. Between the two of us, I'm the thinker. Thus, when she managed to construct something complex and manages to explain it fully, she reacts like this._ There was also a quite revealing deduction he could make that from that. _She told me countless times how much she respects me, but this is the first time I see it with my own eyes._

'I'll think about it.'

Babette slowed down, letting her arms fall to her side. The laughter slowly vanished and she stopped shaking. The wide grin became thinner, her fangs disappearing behind the thin, parted lips. She wasn't looking at him. Her gaze was wandering over the heaps of sand in front of her, accumulated there by the waves during the low tide. _Soon enough this very spot will be covered by water,_ Azrael thought, observing how far they were from the reef where the Black Door had been placed. At nighttime, the water sometimes lapped the area in front of it. He brought his gaze back from the rocks to the girl, who was still staring thoughtfully with her smile still lingering.

As soon as she noticed he was looking her way, she straightened her back. Her features tensed a little once again. 'Sorry for my excitement,' she said wryly, 'I couldn't deny that to myself. So, now that you might have a chance to make it after all, we can return to practical matters. Where do you intend to go now?'

 _I'm not sure myself,_ he thought. Despite everything, he knew that he had merely revealed the problem. He was far away from solving it. _I still don't have anything to direct me. Staying here would be just fine, but it wouldn't do anything._ 'I suppose I'll continue with the mission I've been given,' he said. Saying the words caused the mixture of frustration and fear to become even more present to his perception. 'I decided I'd eliminate the vampire threat and, to some extent, I couldn't be in a better position. Unwillingly, I infiltrated their ranks.'

The girl assumed a strange expression. 'So, the plan is still to continue alone? No changed whatsoever, no matter what happened?' Her features moved further, making it clear that she was both surprised and amused. 'Maybe you have your ideas, but I don't know how you'll accomplish anything from where you are right now.'

'I know,' he said. Azrael noticed the automatic repression of his own hurt, which had disappeared without leaving a trace in his voice. _She struck where it hurt._ Whatever she had meant it, she had reminded him that there was no real plan of action. He was just following an idea, a clue that he had. 'I'll remain on this track,' he continued, unsure about telling the truth of not until the last possible second, 'as long as it takes me to find a solution. I'll remain part of the Volkihar, I'll know everything that could help me, and I can wait. Thanks to them, I can wait forever.'

'Are you sure? That this is the best way?'

'I think I am.' His gaze emptied for a moment as he focused solely on his thoughts, identifying the thread that was giving him some degree of certainty. 'Truthfully, I don't know what I should do now. I feel like I know nothing. Whatever decision I took when my faculties were still intact will always be better than anyone I take now. I guess there would also be the option to stop and think, but it wouldn't work. If there's a lesson to be learned here, is that I think with my body as well as my mind. I'll never find a solution to this problem if either one is idle.'

'Oh!' cried the girl, giggling afterwards. 'The first time I can't really argue with you tonight. I guess that makes sense.'

 _If only it would make as much sense to me as it does to you, I'd be a happier Dunmer._ In the years, the last one in Skyrim in particular, he had learned how strange a thing persuasion was. _How many times I have confronted someone acting like I had the power while I really had none, only for them to believe me and give in._ Some other times, not unlike the one just underwent, he managed to convince others of things he wasn't sure of himself. He occasionally explained a thought he had to someone in order to start a discussion, to deconstruct that belief together; the times when he accidentally convinced the chosen person of that initial idea were many more than the alternative, and they were in equal parts satisfying and irritating. _I've always blamed that malleability on stupidity or ignorance. But maybe there's very little rational thought involved in accepting an idea. There is for me, but I've never been normal._

'Azrael, one last thing,' Babette added, bringing him away from his thoughts. He noticed at once that both her tone and her face had returned to a more serious one. 'You're going to Riften, right? Or in the Rift in general, wherever that place is.'

'I am.'

'That's a long journey, even with Shadowmere it's at least a few days.' She stopped momentarily, probably making sure he was listening. Her bloodshot irises moved, as if checking what she could see of his face. 'No reluctant vampire likes it at first, but you will have to drink some blood before you get there. If you don't, you'll be in a lot of pain. You'll not be able to ride in the hours where the sunlight is directly hitting you, which might add a day or two.'

The resistance he felt to that idea was something new. 'It's five days, I'll manage without. I don't like the idea.'

The girl's eyebrows cocked abruptly and she started smiling wryly again. 'Why? What is the problem? Every new vampire has one, but in reality there is no particular reason.'

'It's not right.' The answer had been an impulse, an excused he had come up with without even realizing it. _Why that, of all thing? That's so idiotic. No matter._ He would have had time to investigate it later. _Now, let's hear what she has to say about it._

Babette merely laughed _._ 'That's going down in our records,' she said, scratching her teeth together. She did that sometimes when she was amused. 'The Listener of the Dark Brotherhood, one of the greatest takers of lives, doesn't do something because it's not right. Neither is killing, as far as I know, and yet we do it anyway. Besides,' she continued with a wicked smile, 'what's life greatest illusion?'

Azrael felt his lips tensing into a very faint sneer. 'Innocence, my Sister.'

* * *

A/N: There was a thing I wanted to share, which isn't particularly relevant to the story but that I found very interesting: despite having thought about it previously, I never quite realized how subtly erotic a vampire's bite can seem until I had to write it. There isn't any clear description of what it feels like to drink blood within Skyrim, but there is plenty in the literature surrounding vampires, which is what can be partially taken into consideration.


	14. Chapter XIII: Unholy Grail

Chapter XIII: _Unholy Grail_

* * *

The bloodspring was a welcome sight to his eyes, which craved blood just as much as his dead flesh did. Six days had gone by since he had fed. He couldn't resist the impulse now. The temporary life which had been absorbed from the miner Babette had given him had faded a while past, and now he craved new blood. The dark energies coalescing with his body were too strong now, after all that time. This once, the only different thing was that he was still present to the overwhelming sensation. He didn't resist it, but merely observed it. It had been his resistance to have ravaged his mind on the way to Dawnstar, and that wasn't something he was willing to experience twice.

The shallow lake which surrounded the spring was black as tar, the surface reflecting the light in an unnatural way. The motions induced by the upwelling itself bent the surface strangely, as if it was more viscous than normal water. Two small stone bridges connected opposite sides of the small pond to the center, where the crimson substance emerged. Below the surface of the water, the spring was contained by concentric barriers made of the same stone stabs used for the bridges. Thanks to those, the water gushed a few inches from the water's surface. Its color was red and only slightly less dense than the rest of the lake. _It does look like a spring,_ Azrael thought, kneeling down low, _but it surely isn't normal water._

He grasped firmly the Bloodstone Chalice into his right hand and sank it into the reddish substance. Concurrently, he lowered the hood with his left and submerged his whole face into the bloodspring. Despite what Babette had told him, he could not have brought himself to touch the blood of a living being yet. Most of his hair fell in as well, but he didn't care. He didn't even care about the bloodied skeleton floating in the red substance near him. There was something immensely alleviating and terrifying in drinking blood, because for the duration of the act every other function was on hold. He couldn't think, he couldn't feel, nothing at all managed to surpass the sensation itself. He had considered that it might have become different over time, but that was a conjecture. What he knew was just that.

The taste of blood, he had already realized, could not be fully described using mortal equivalents. Aside from the fact that it unexplainably spread across multiple senses, it was a flavor that grouped all others into one. The closest thing he had ever experienced was when he had eaten or drunk something he was in desperate need of. After days without water, even the muddy one flowing down the nearest stream tastes better than the meal served in some nobleman's palace. Perhaps it wasn't even the substance itself to have those flavors and it was the person's memory that added them to explain itself why it had tasted so delicious. Azrael had understood something important about vampires thanks to that simple connection. Their desire for blood wasn't restricted to itself, but was an expression of their very nature. They didn't get tired of it, whereas a human tires of eating. A mortal fights for survival, whereas a vampire is beyond that. He fights for a desire, an endless craving and unquenchable thirst. It was another way of being altogether.

It was rather hard to understand how much time had gone by when he pulled his face out of the red water. A second or an hour could have felt the same. _There something strange,_ he thought, noticing a strong blur in his peripheral vision. _Well, this wasn't normal blood. The thug before said as much. They all seem to place quite a bit of value on this gruesome thing._ He raised his head further, feeling the weight of the soaked hair keeping him down. The red water was flowing through his body and making it quake. The blood vessels were seemingly vibrating, the heart beating faintly and slowly. He pulled out the hand gripping the Chalice out of the fountain, spilling some of the red water inside the stone goblet back into the bloodspring. Concurrently, he pulled his hood back on his head, leaving the soaked locks out.

Inadvertently, he had drawn a deep breath. _The cold air feels great. Serana was right on that._ He let his body fall backwards and he remained still for a long moment, kneeling, sitting on his own ankles. He exhaled, slowly and calmly, tasting the air as it flowed away, unused. Despite everything, he was feeling incredibly calm in that moment. The surge of energy was still storming in his body and giving him a sense of inner strength that allowed him to stay there, with a sense of control. _The Void knows I have missed it. If drinking blood gives me back some clarity, then it won't be long before I start thinking of it as good thing. Unless I can find a way to rid myself of the curse, which is unlikely._ There were so many questions and so many things left unanswered, but one thing hadn't changed: his apathy towards a solution. In the journey he had discovered something, which he had not been able to open. _It's as if I found a door but not the key to open it. I suppose it's better than not seeing the door at all._

'Look at him.'

Azrael's head leapt upwards way faster than he could have anticipated. He looked forwards, motionless, feeling his own gaze penetrating the darkness. The end of the room he was looking towards was brightened up. Blinded by the bloodthirst, he hadn't observed everything around with his usual care. He had missed the lit candle at the other end of the room, which almost certainly signaled more thralls or vampires ahead. However, the voice had come from one of the two silhouettes who were standing between him and the light of the candle.

The voice was a woman's. 'Bent and driven mad,' she continued, her voice markedly mocking, 'trying to pursue his empty goals. He continues to behave like a mortal even after having been wrongfully given our mantle.'

'Yeah, too bad.' This time the voice came from the figure next to the one who had spoken. It was a man's, with a deep and rich note to it. 'Lord Harkon's new tool, dead so soon. He wasn't even fit to carry the very blood of his family inside of him.'

The Dragonborn looked at both of them. The man was tall, lean, covered in a grey and tattered version of the vampires' traditional suit armor. Thick, unkempt hair covered his head and the nape of his neck. The face was covered by an equally bushy and just as untidy beard. There were livid rings under his bloodshot eyes and the nose was crooked. Thin veins emerged on his neck, light blue against the yellowish skin. _Everything suggests a quarter-breed._ He wasn't an unknown face. Azrael remembered him from the first time he had set foot in the castle.

The woman was familiar too. He remembered her from the same occasion, sitting in the place right next to the one left vacant by the Altmer that had met them at the castle's entrance. Vingalmo. Her dark hair were combed in a simple bun, which only marked the thin and sharp cheekbones. The eyes were shadowed, the nose compressed and the lips deformed in the cross-shaped way that most characterized them. The robe she wore was cleaner and less ragged than her companion one's. The boots were also different, more similar to Serana's. They were a quite normal battle footwear, reinforced with steel near the tip.

'With whom di I have the pleasure of speaking?' Azrael said, slowly. There was a faint sarcastic note in his tone. He didn't move a single muscle.

The woman scoffed disdainfully. A disdain that was prescribed rather than felt. 'The weakling still has a sense of humor.' Her voice sounded curious, and her face betrayed a trace of surprise. 'Well, you deserve some explanation before your ultimate demise. Harkon was foolish to let you live, even more so to send you here. My companion is Stalf, whereas I am Salonia,' she said, putting a hand on her belly and bending forward a gesture that looked like a very old-fashioned bow. 'I'm the one who will return the Chalice to Vingalmo, so that we'll be sure the Lord gets it back. From the right hands.'

Azrael had started thinking of a way to extract more out of her a while before she finished, but let go of the thought as soon as she stopped speaking. Stalf, the man, had turned abruptly in her direction. His eyebrows were pinched and the thin skin of the forehead was tense on the skull bone. 'Wait, what?' he asked. Salonia turned towards him, inexpressive. 'That's not what we agreed,' he continued. 'We take it back together. Those were the conditions under which we left the castle.'

'You both think Lord Harkon a fool,' Azrael intervened, impassively. His voice was deeper and more sonorous than both of theirs, so they heard him easily. He patiently waited, but both of the quarter-breeds turned quickly in his directions. 'The very fact we're here, however,' he said, 'disproves it. He probably knew it would end up like this. This can end badly for everyone here, or we can reach an agreement.' He knew only the surface level of Castle Volkihar's politics, that which Garan had told him while fetching the Chalice. _I'm not very hopeful this will work. I don't even know if I care._ 'We all walk away, bringing the Chalice back as a team. The day of reckoning will come yet, and you'll live to fight in it.'

The two vampires were silent for a moment. The Dragonborn didn't know what exactly was going on in their heads, what their plans were or to what extent his words had managed to sway them. _They aren't bluffing that disagreement. I'm positive._ Stalf was really surprised and she had truly betrayed him. The question was if the man had betrayed her back or not. Politics is often compared to a game, but Azrael had always found it best described as a calculation. The numbers changed, but there were a limited number of operations. According to that computation, it was more than probable that Stalf also had been ordered to dispatch of her.

However, whether a game or a calculation, Azrael didn't find the wish to take part in it. He didn't want to play it or solve it, whatever the metaphor. The thought of extending his hand to his back and grabbing the hilt of the sword felt as useless as any other action. He didn't stand, he didn't move. He waited for the two vampires to react, and if they would chose to put and end to him he would have probably done nothing. _I'm too tired._ The prospect of his earthly remains resting in that gruesome, tainted place didn't bother him in the slightest. _Babette may be right, but she's not me. I don't want to fight. Alduin is dead. My work here is done. It might be time to leave this place._

'Idiots.' Salonia's voice tore him away from his thinking. 'Both of you. You wouldn't have left this place alive, whatever the case,' she said, raising her chin in the Dragonborn's direction. Afterwards, she turned towards the man. 'And you, Stalf. You didn't really think I'd let you walk out of here, did you? If you did, you're more stupid than I thought.'

'Well, that's just fine.' It was unclear whether she could see him or not, but his hand crept down his side, ever closer to the axe that dangled from the belt. 'Orthjolf told me to finish off anyone who got in the way.'

The man was strong, there was no doubt about it. One motion and that cleaver might have cut down his fellow for good. _But that's not going to happen,_ Azrael thought, now in possession of the last clues which pointed at that being the less likely outcome. Salonia was one step ahead of her companion. Her composure, her obstinacy and the tone all suggested a seasoned attitude, which has its own unique traits if the environment is the one of a court. She was alert and wary, and had probably studied Stalf's moves for some time. Even now, her poise in the face of an incoming struggle could only point at a premeditated action. _Her hands… She's going to attack him first, not me. That's probably a result of my interruption._

The woman's hand struck sharply at the man's side. Stalf wore no gloves, and the claws of the woman carved two deep wounds in the back of his hand. Whatever pain he felt, it delayed him from grabbing the weapon he was reaching for. Salonia grabbed her blade, a shortsword with a lining and a section that the Dragonborn wasn't familiar with, with her other hand and thrust it towards the man's throat in one movement of stunning speed.

Stalf reacted just quick enough. He momentarily ignored the axe by his side and moved his other hand in front of his neck, grabbing the tip of the woman's blade with his closed fist. A bit of blood coated the edges of the blade, but the fleeting pause was a trick. Salonia waited for his companion's movement to end, so that he wouldn't know her blade out of its trajectory. When Stalf's hand stopped quaking, she continued the thrust she had initiated. The tip of the shortsword cut through the man's hands and penetrated his neck right under the chin. The sound of flesh being pierced was followed by a faint, cracking one.

 _That was an clever move,_ Azrael thought. Stalf let out a short groan, but then the nightmarish light in his eyes faded away quickly. _A stab in the throat would have probably not killed him. It would have been a flesh wound. That strike managed to crack the skull, however._ The woman retracted the sword from the man's chin, still rigid and ready for another strike. There wasn't the need for one, though. Stalf's head fell limply on his chest just before he dropped on his knees. He bent to the right, probably because of the axe's weight, and he collapsed lifelessly on the floor. _That lady,_ Azrael said to himself looking up at Salonia, _surely knows how to kill a vampire. I wonder how long she's done it._

'I pity you, fool,' she whispered, bringing the blade to her side and looking down at Stalf. 'You were on the wrong side all along. Perhaps you have come to realize that, before you died.' She turned her head to her left, looking directly at Azrael with her bloodied eyes. The red of the irises was pulsing, a normal thing for a vampire who is fighting. 'As for you,' she continued, 'I pity you too. I was expecting you to stab me in the back, but you didn't. It doesn't seem you've got the strength.'

'No. I have it.' He let his head lower, until he was gazing at the bloodspring. He felt death approaching in his very bones, but there was something else arising. Along with those sensations, a forgotten desire to be sincere was having the better of him. 'What I lack is the will. I didn't have much before, and your blood has stripped me away of that little.'

He had noticed, back in Dawnstar, how he could feel the presence of another vampire. What he hadn't guessed then was that he could know more than its mere presence by that sense. There are some animals that are said to smell fear and are more prone to attack targets who are afraid. Something similar seemed to be true with him as well. _In a parallel to the sense of smell, she smells salty._ Babette had felt rather different. _It's telling me something. What if there is a connection between the feeling and the state of the other vampire?_ That left some room for interpretation, but it could be given for granted that a sweet smell would be the one of fear. It was supposed to be pleasurable. _Something that's not sweet, but similar._

The Dragonborn gazed upwards, without moving his head, barely able to see what the woman was doing. She had turned towards him and was facing him, motionless, shortsword in hand. Her eyes were fixed on him, and the bloodthirsty light was fading from them. True to her previous composure, her face looked inexpressive at first. There were tiny details who suggested her reaction, however. The eyebrows were slowly moving, perhaps a sign that she pinched them, and the jaw was clenched. _She's confused,_ Azrael thought, putting everything together. _She is nervous and confused. Of course she is. She expected a fight. She might be thinking I'm trying to trick her._ That wasn't so unsound. After all, it was what he had done the first time.

'You would really surrender your life and the Chalice to me? Without a fight?' Her voice was firm and controlled, there wasn't any trace of the bewilderment that her expression and scent had betrayed. 'I must say, you still have some dignity. You're foolish like that other one,' she said, with a mocking gesture towards Stalf's corpse, 'but you still have some dignity.'

Azrael didn't have to wait long before she moved her first step towards the bridge that connected the opposite side of the pond to the bloodspring. He lowered his gaze and merely listened to the sound. Each footstep was soft and barely hearable, with something immensely sweet about it. The sentimental parts of his mind that had awakened during his journey to Dawnstar were giving him ideas of what would happen that were more poetic than he could stomach. There was nothing remotely special about that thing. The person who would put him down was just a puppet, someone who had been used. The chances of her having understood it completely were slim. From what he knew, Vingalmo was no idiot. He probably knew there was a chance she would die. She probably did too. There was truly nothing romantic about it, quite the contrary. Manipulation, influence and status. Arguably the rotten core of existence.

In his daydreams, Azrael had thought time and time again about death. It was always so close to him. It had marked him. He had never seen it but he had an idea. The people he killed didn't get the chance to confront with it, most of the time. They died thinking about what they were leaving behind, not worrying what was going to come. He was different. He had nothing left behind that mattered to him enough. What was important was the sense of curiosity of what lied beyond, if there was anything at all. Maybe the Void. Maybe the Mother of Rose would summon him to Moonshadow. Maybe there was something, a place where he might have found something new. In his dreams, the person sending him to that new place was always someone special. One time he had seen Laila coming to lead him away.

It was queer how long he had indulged in the thought of death. But now, when the dream was about to become true, he couldn't let himself go. The steps drew closer, the sound of the metallic tip of Salonia's boot was now clearly hitting the rock of the bridge. The closer she got, the more the Dragonborn felt his body becoming restless and agitated. The energies that had been put to rest by feeding were rising again. That sinister force was seeping into his muscles, flesh and bones. The fibers of his body were quaking, filled with an amount of vigor he could not discharge nor ignore. _They're confused too,_ he realized. That dark, otherworldly energies was rebelling again. _They do have a purpose left in this plane. To seek pleasure._ Only a purely rational level, it went back to the feeling of thirst. A vampire's one is eternal, a mortal's one if finite. That was how they could live for eternity without going insane.

His arms began to tremble, unable to contain their strength anymore. His neck tensed and the tension crept up to his jaw, making the fangs snap behind his closed lips. The shoulders flexed and relaxed unregularly over the course of mere moments, almost as if they were readying for the Vampire Lord's wings to sprout out of his back. The sense of touch came back to his fangs together with the overwhelming craving to tear something away with his teeth. The hand which was holding the Chalice, which had not moved until that point, gripped the base of the object so hard it almost damaged the metal palm. A flare of energy rose to his eyes, as the world disappeared and reappeared in a vermillion blaze.

'I know it's hard, containing—'

 _She's obedient and experienced, but stupid. She doesn't know how to understand new situations,_ Azrael thought, and it was the last coherent thing he could consciously elaborate. Afterwards, his mind fused with the will of his body and he didn't resist it. His gaze rose above, looking at the woman as she loomed over him with the shortsword raised.

His left hand darted ahead, aimed for her groin. The fingers closed on her inner left thigh, tearing through the leather and grasping strongly. Still holding the Chalice, he enveloped her knee with his right arm. The surge of energy that rushed through his upper body was destabilizing, and he put all of that force into a mighty pull the whole right side of his body. Desperate to release the remaining vigor, he opened his mouth and growled viciously, intensifying the pull on her left leg.

Abruptly, the resistance ceased completely. There was the sound of the leather being torn, the disgusting one of flesh being rent and the crack of a bone breaking apart. But that wasn't the intended end. A scream came from the woman's mouth, something that was beyond and beneath human. A sadistic heave of new strength aided him in the movement of his left arm, which moved upwards to grab her elbow. With his right hand, now free, he gripped the Chalice. He pulled himself up with his left, hearing another crack of more bones being broken. He felt her arm twisting in an unnatural way, but he was where he wanted.

He was now half-standing, with his knees still slightly bent, and with all the strength he needed. There was no pain, no tension, no need to tighten the muscles before a strike. Everything that had plagued him in every struggle he had ever fought meant nothing. He moved his right shoulder, baring his teeth and feeling a new, overwhelming wave of energy which dispersed into his body. His right arm traced a wide swing into the air, the blood red water of the spring flying out of the Chalice as it traveled through the air. Salonia probably tried to move, but it was far too late. The rim of the Chalice's bowl crashed against her temple, producing yet another disgusting sound and smashing the skin.

The woman fell down powerfully in the black pond, raising a splash of the viscous substance. The drops fell on both bridges, on the sides of the pond and some even on Azrael's armor. After the wallow, a semblance of silence came over the place. The Dragonborn's flaring eyes were fixed on the corpse, floating on the dark surface, the arm with the broken elbow bent and stuck around the back. The head and face were disfigured. The jaw was broken and bent, the temple completely torn and open. On the other side of the bloodspring, her ripped leg floated freely in the fountain's current. The femur was snapped diagonally, the flesh split at the same height as the leggings' leather. The waves created by the two distinct pieces of the woman's body dashed against the sides of the grim mere. The bloodied skeletons floating in the black water went up and down, following the movement of the waves' crests.

Azrael started to get some semblance of control only then. He was feeling the energy in his limbs starting to slowly dissipate, now largely unneeded. However, the only place where the change was more tangible was his right hand. The grip on the Chalice's stem decreased, which made him realize how strong he was grasping it. As he let go of the tension, thoughts started brimming in his mind. First and foremost, the instructions of Garan Marethi. _He said that after filling the Chalice at the bloodspring, the blood of a powerful vampire was to be added. I suppose both him and I thought to add it once it was safely back at the castle._ But there was another way now. From the look of it, both vampires had fed recently. Thus, they could be of use to that purpose. Surrendering to the lack of energy in his legs, Azrael kneeled down once again. He passed the Chalice from his right hand to his left and extended the former, grabbing Salonia's torn leg.

The vampire's blood was of a slightly darker color than the bloodspring itself. He brought the ripped limb as near as he could and then dipped the Chalice once again into the reddish water. He noticed only now that the bowl was damaged. The flowing incisions that decorated the rim was scraped away and one of the spikes adorning the lower portion wasn't there anymore. He turned his head slowly to the other side, looking at Salonia's body floating in the black substance. The temple he had struck was on the side that was hidden to him. _The spike must be stuck there._ Her felt the Chalice getting heavier and he knew it had filled. He turned his head again to the water underneath him, where the mix of reddish liquid and blood was coalescing into the Chalice. _I wonder if a quarter-breed's blood will suffice._

He pulled the artifact out of the spring, balancing it to keep the content from being spilled. He put it down on one of the circular series of slabs that contained the fountain and drew the torn leg nearer, grabbing the dagger with his left. He put his fingers in between the flesh and the vampire's leggings, cutting a round piece of hardened leather with the blade. _That should suffice._ There wasn't anything resembling a string or a wool thread near him, so he needed to tie the leather together. _I might have thought about this, but then again, I wasn't in my best conditions when I left the castle._ Grabbing the piece of leather with both hands, he stretched it on top of the Chalice and drew it down. _Now to make this impermeable… A spell will do for a while but I'll need an enchanting altar. However, speaking of best conditions, what in Oblivion just happened to me?_

He could trace a very clear line that separated the moment when he was in control of his actions to the one, immediately after, when he wasn't. He remembered his last intentional thought, which had been a last read of her behavior. That reinforcing clue that she didn't know what to expect had sparked his instinctual response, which had felt in some way safer to act of its own accord. _That means that they're not in competition,_ he thought while distractedly channeling a small amount of magicka and putting his right hand over the leather piece. _Even that new part of me isn't completely erratic._ That was an important point, one he had reflected on for quite some time, and knowing that option was true among all the others calmed him somewhat. Maybe, at the end of the line, there was a solution that wasn't radical. _Speaking of which…_

Now at the peak of his strength, having fed and having his mind clear once again, he had not the wish nor the will to deny that he had ignored what Babette had told him. He had fallen again into the trap of feeling that nothing was ever important, and just like the previous time he had searched for an extreme solution. _As much as I hate the vampire part of me, it's undeniable that it saved me._ It had fought with all its energy until he hadn't the strength to struggle anymore. _So much strength, and it's out of my reach. It's working against me at times, no less._ He halted the thoughts for a moment, focusing on extracting some more blood from Salonia's leg. He coated the edges of the piece of leather, the part that touched the bottom of the Chalice. Summoning some more magicka, he cupped the artifact's base with his hand and modeled the ethereal energy. A freezing cold irradiated from his palms, freezing the vampire's life lymph and gluing the leather onto the base. _I'll undo it as soon as I find some resin._ It would have served its purpose for the time being.

He rose gradually, straightening his back and neck with caution. He felt relatively calm now. He was never free by the harrowing feelings storming incessantly in the back of his head, but they were quieter than before. He sensed his equilibrium. His legs felt strong and his balance on the ground was solid. _How strange that killing someone always gives me this surge of purpose and clarity._ It had been a constant ever since he had joined the Brotherhood. Stalking the prey created the tension, the intense moment of the fight or the mere assassination released that tension and granted him a moment of strength and intensity. _In a way, biting someone for blood does seem similar._ He pulled the rim of the hood a little more over his forehead and rolled both shoulders back, adjusting the cloak.

'I was right to assume this trail of corpses would end with you.'

The Dragonborn was too absorbed in his thinking to hear her coming, but he didn't even need to control himself. The tone, the sound and everything about that voice was familiar. _Now, this is a good riddle,_ he thought, evaluating the situation. _Did she follow me in here because she was too curious, or because she was worried? Babette would surely choose the latter. The request I sent could have seemed unusual, too._ He turned around slowly, piercing the darkness that shrouded the way to the next room with his vision and searching. _I guess we'll find out shortly enough._

'How did you figure?' he asked inexpressively, crossing his arms on his chest and waiting.

Karliah was still walking through the threshold, through the pitch black. No mortal, however keenly observant, could have seen her without the aid of a potion or a strong spell. Azrael, however, could make out her outlines rather clearly. The shape of the headpiece was somewhat bigger than he was used to, which meant she wasn't wearing the hood of the Nightingales. The scrutiny was easier after that assumption. The simple and thin pauldrons of the armor and the few pockets and belts that made the shape of her cuirass irregular made it even clearer that she was wearing the standard issue set of guild armor. _Which means she comes directly from the Guild. And there's no one with her. That's interesting._ It could have meant a few things. Even from those very few moments, her visit was getting interesting.

'The impeccable style,' she said softly. The conversations with her often resulted in endless exchanges of antiphrastic or ironic questions and sentences, a game which was rarely broken if there was nothing overly important to talk about. 'Those who were alone were graced with the cut of the throat, but those who were in groups were reserved a death by suffocation. There were only two things which I didn't understand. Why did those women with deformed faces have their bones broken? And the pile of ashes in the last room?'

'Vampires,' he said simply. Karliah didn't flinch or say anything. She had probably suspected it and was most likely waiting for clarification. Which he, for once, was willing to give. 'The pile of ashes is what remains of their leader. I shot him an arrow coated with a flammable liquid. I didn't have a clear shot on the two women, so that was the last resort. No vampire dies immediately from a cut to the throat.'

'Masterful, but…' She had almost managed to keep her calm tone initially, but in the end her voice had betrayed her surprise. She was almost coming into the light, but she had slowed down her steps. 'Azrael… Why are your eyes glowing?'

 _So it can be seen…_ he thought. The fact that something that obvious had given it away so soon was an annoyance, but not a big one. _I can probably be honest with her._ Nevertheless, he moved his head slightly to the side on an impulse. There was something resembling shame that was making him sink into his own bowels, it felt like. _Even under the hood,_ he reflected. _There's probably no way to hide it._ The cowl he wore had been crafted with extreme care and using an obscuring enchantment that managed to neutralize the vast majority of the light that would hit his face. _But there's no light illuminating my eyes, they're bright on their own._ Regardless, it wouldn't have probably been a recurrent problem. _Not only I'm heightening my sight, but I've also just ended fighting. Those two things made Serana's eyes glow the brightest._

He had turned his head away enough to cover up his own eyes as best as he could, but he still had a small spiral where she could clearly see her stepping into the lit area of the room. She was indeed wearing the suit of armor characteristic of the guild, but she had a darker and better-crafted variant that Azrael had ordered crafted specifically for her. Azrael, on second thought, imagined that she must had donned it frequently during those months running the Guild with Brynjolf. In the Dragonborn's absence, the two of them stood for him perfectly. Brynjolf handled people, their human issues and social problems. His ability in helping and cheering up others was unparalleled. Karliah, on the other hand, handled projects. To her own surprise, she had found a new talent. The rational mind of the Dunmer and the number of years she had spent living as an exile had taught her the importance of amounts and quantities. The numbers were her responsibility, and it was her duty to keep every record up to date and to plan the next move of the Guild, always with a personal touch of her Dunmeri cunning. She always knew what to do, where to strike, and what amount of cash the operation would provide them. She made the plans, and Brynjolf kept the personnel ready for it. They worked in perfect harmony and respected the work of the other. They made quite the pair. However, there was something else in that picture. Azrael himself had brought about the idea of the Guild being a family, and inside that family he was the patriarch, the father. Karliah, the only one being on his same level, functioned as the Guild's aunt, in a way, which made her the Dragonborn's figurative sister. They both liked that and felt it very true.

That, together with the slight positive preconception he had always had towards other Dark Elves, made him decide to trust her. But that wasn't the right moment. 'Can you see it even if I'm in the light?' he asked, curious about that one last little detail.

'Yes,' she said, stepping closer and stopping at a couple of yards away from him. She wasn't afraid of him in any way, and she was perhaps showing it willingly. Azrael noticed her violet eyes looking in his own. 'It's not very clear,' she continued, 'and they have become less bright since I noticed, but yes. It's an igneous glow. It changes between yellow and red.'

Azrael breathed out some fresh air. As long as the blood of the spring kept his life functions awake, he wouldn't deny himself the pleasure. 'Fine.' He brought his hands down to the height of his belt, undoing the knot. 'Let's go, we'll talk on the way.' He put the Chalice beside the belt and tied it to his side. His gaze rose and met Karliah's one, which was inquisitive. He simply gave her a nod, indicating he would explain in time.

He stepped in her direction, while she was busy taking in her surroundings. She looked at him as he stopped in front of her, towering over her with his full hand-width of advantage in height. A smile touched the corners of her lips. 'This place is quite grim,' she said.

'It is.' He motioned towards the other side of the room with his head. 'Let's go.'

They walked around the black mere, remaining close to its edge. Karliah kept looking suspiciously at the pond, her gaze moving from the bloodspring to the rims, stopping on Salonia's corpse along the way. Azrael looked at her sideward, merely wanting to observe her. Her huge violet eyes, even for a Mer, kept wandering on the room. There always seemed to be a timid and frightened look in them. A lock of dark brown hair fell out of the hood on her left shoulder. She had let them grow ever since they had killed Mercer, and now they were noticeably longer than when he had first met her. He had always found her frail appearance queer, contrasted to how strong she had proven to be.

Reaching the other side of the pool, she also cast a brief glance at Stalf's body. The man was down on the ground, prone, the legs barely spread and the arms stretched out. The axe by his side had never been pulled from the belt. His left hand, the one he had used to grab Salonia's blade, was marked by the bloodied cut on the palm. The wound under the chin was hidden from them at the moment, but Karliah had surely seen it before. 'Was that your doing?' she asked.

'No.' Azrael glimpsed at the corpse and then brought his gaze ahead once again, looking towards the exit. 'The one in the water is the perpetrator. Her death is my doing, though.'

'You really did destroy her. The whole situation looks complicated,' she commented. 'This whole place was quite curious to me. A drug hotspot, but not one we've heard of at the Guild. I thought we were aware of all illegal activities in the province, by now. The dealers and the doorman weren't known faces.'

'Those two,' he said, gesturing to the corpses over his shoulders, 'weren't part of this operation. It's something even more complicated.'

'Do you think we should get a hold on this place, now that everyone here is dead?' She looked at him, and Azrael met her gaze for a moment. He saw a bit of his own teachings in that focused attitude she had, always looking for opportunities. 'I mean, if no one will use this place other people will occupy it sooner or later.'

The Dragonborn had actually thought about it on the way through the boilers and the stores. 'I don't think we can afford it, in the format you're thinking of. We would need armed men here, and we don't have any to spare. What we can do is use this place as leverage in our deals with the Khajiits. We can give them this place, in exchange for a larger fraction of their profits.'

'That would be clever,' she agreed, nodding pensively. She brought a hand to her side, specifically to a round, brown linen bag. The circular shape and the way it bent at one point made the nature of the item very clear, which threw Azrael back in a series of thoughts he had no real wish to go through again. 'While we're on it,' she added, lifting the bag so that he could see it, 'this is what you asked in your message. Mainframe of silver, the inner lining and the middle band in pure malachite and a flawless emerald as decoration on the front. I hope everything is fine.'

Azrael felt his teeth grinding together for a short moment. He extended his arm and resisted the trembling as he could. 'Thanks,' he simply said, taking it from her hand and bringing it on the side of his belt opposite to the Chalice.

'Is it intended for someone in particular?'

Azrael tied the leather strips together and looked in front of him, avoiding her gaze. 'I don't want to talk about it.'

She didn't reply in any way. Azrael stepped ahead faster than her for a moment. They had arrived to the end of the room, behind the pillar that hid the candles behind. There were solidified drops of wax just below them. In front of them stood a heavy metal door that was common in Nordic crypts. The Dragonborn had noticed how part of the underground tunnels were in fact a sectioned off part of one such vault. The main entrance was probably somewhere else or had sank below the earth a while before. Those portals were heavy and hard to open, but this one appeared to have been used more frequently than others.

He put one hand on each of the two wings and pushed. A squeaking sound came from the hinges, but the door opened very quickly. Azrael, in truth, had expected it to be much harder. Those doors usually required all of his strength to open and it often left him breathless for a moment. _But while not breathing and with the strength to tear limbs off, these are a joke._ It was partly due to Karliah, probably. Since she was familiar, he had interpreted everything around them as familiar and that strength was still unfamiliar to him. In fact, the gate had opened so fast that Karliah seemed curious again. _I guess at some point I'll have to explain. And if not now, then when?_

'Bryn must have told you about my intentions the last time I came by the Guild,' he said, without any unnecessary preambles. Neither of the two Dunmer needed one. 'They gave me a lead I could pursue and I did. The events that follow are quite convoluted, but they led me to the vampires' lair. It was there, after my plans didn't work out as intended, that I became one of them. This pack at my side is something I have t bring back to them.' He stopped to look around the room they had just entered. It was a relatively small chamber containing at least a dozen upright sarcophagi. Clearly a part of the older ruin. There didn't seem to be an exit.

Karliah followed him in close behind. She cast an absent glance at the coffins. 'So you're working for them now?'

Azrael stopped for a moment. _Is she assuming I have completely changed side?_ She sounded calm, even accepting that idea. _She probably thinks the vampires are just growing in number, while I think there's a bigger machination going on._ But that was merely an assumption, and he knew it well. He focused on the room once again. There was clear evidence that someone had been there recently. Maybe that was where Stalf and Salonia were hiding. The coffins were mostly open and the Draugrs had been removed. On the bottom of the upright sarcophagi there were lit candles, which was further proof of someone's recent presence. He focused away for a moment, realizing in had been a few seconds since Karliah had posed her question. 'No,' he answered, taking another pause to think. 'There's not really a word to describe me in that situation. I'm not a double agent, because I'm not working for anyone else, just for myself. I'm waiting for a moment to strike. I'm an assassin, in the end.'

'I understand,' Karliah said. 'It certainly seems a strange situation to be in… What are you looking for?'

Just as she said it, Azrael spied a chain hanging from the pillar he was inspecting. He extended a hand and pulled down, making the iron rings squeak. 'This,' he replied. A moment later, the wall on the opposite side of the door shook weakly, releasing a small and dense cloud of dust and splinters. Slowly, it sank into the ground with a screeching, sharp noise until it was almost completely dug in the ground, making a deeper sound. Azrael turned once again towards her. 'You were saying?'

'I was thinking aloud,' she said, following him as he stepped towards the opened passage. 'I don't understand why you needed me, though. I have never dealt with a vampire in my life.'

 _You are doing it now,_ Azrael said to himself. The passage was dark and poorly lit, but it was not a problem for him. There was nothing strange in there, perhaps expect for three immense cisterns. 'I know,' he said, as he walked towards one of them. He hit it with a finger. By the sound they produced, they seemed empty. 'I needed your help on another matter which concerns a parallel problem,' he continued. 'I have not been very lucid as of late, but both me and Babette think that vampirism isn't the only answer. She claims there is a moment when I started acting strangely, but I haven't been able to pinpoint it precisely.'

Karliah hummed briefly as he finished the sentence, as if amused or interested by something. Azrael walked ahead, eyeing the next door and waiting. 'Actually,' she said, softly, 'I meant to tell you about this for quite some time.'

The Dragonborn felt two motions in his body and mind. He still couldn't understand how, but ever since the transformation the emotional and instinctual impulses had increased heavily in intensity. The two waves of energy were very easily recognizable as a mixture of relief, perhaps because of her being able to understand, and euphoria, because the way she had said it indicated that she had quite a lot to say. Every kind of knowledge caused a brief sense of elation in him. There was nothing strange in the patterns, per se, but the strength with which they appeared was different. Very different. Whereas before he had troubles sensing them, now they were impossible to ignore. He felt them come and go, just passing by and leaving a trail of thrill, which he readily suppressed. It blinded his mind and clouded his clarity.

'A while ago,' the she-Elf told, 'I even pieced together a record of the places you had been before I noticed this. After you came down from the Throat of the World and announced the death of that Dragon of yours, you participated in the festivities at Whiterun. Then, you disappeared with Elisif for a few days. That we know. Immediately afterwards, you first appeared at the Sanctuary. That I know from a mention made by Laegiine while she was working with us on our second combined operation. She told that you seemed tired and exhausted, which wasn't strange to anyone. Your wounds still needed to heal and you'd been through a lot. You came by the Guild next and we arranged everything for the winter. We planned together the moves against Maven and the reconstruction of the network in Riften. Do you remember?'

Azrael directed his gaze towards her, ignoring the details of the storeroom they were traversing. If the map he had built in his mind while he went through the place was correct, they were close to the exit. However, that interested him less than Karliah's question. _That isn't unintentional. She never says anything like that._ 'Why shouldn't I?'

'I'll tell you.' Most people were quite thrown off when their question was answered by another question, but not her. 'After you planned everything and thought everything out, the implicit agreement was that you would stay still for the winter. You did something else entirely. We calculated every move with the assumption that you would have stayed still. You never argued with it.' She stopped for a moment. Azrael couldn't guess why, as the reasons might have been many. 'Right after, you went to the Sanctuary. We all thought you'd spend the winter there. Instead, after just a couple of days from what I could gather, you threw yourself into another thing. It was as if you couldn't stay still. Bryn was the one who confirmed my suspicion when you came here the second time. You were even more reclusive than normal and you were constantly in search of something to do. You journeyed from one end of Skyrim to the other helping the College, completing contracts, doing missions for us, and Nocturnal knows what else. It wasn't like you.'

Azrael opened the door made of iron bars that separated the dealer's small counter from the larger part of the room. They were indeed near the entrance, where the massacre had began. He had little wish to remember that moment. He had even tried to drink the blood of one of the addicts, but it tasted of skooma and he had spit in on the floor. The rest of them had been culled down, but the cuts left by his dagger were still precise and thin. _If anything, I can say that fighting comes really natural now. I hardly could control myself, and yet every kill is clean and efficient._ That was more of a side-thought, however, as there was a much more complex reasoning going on in that moment.

What Karliah had said was definitely interesting, so much so some singular things he might have even labeled as revealing. However, what she had said after the start was largely unrelated to his question. _She has drawn me really well into that trap halfway through. I genuinely don't remember my intention of settling for the winter._ It was much more specific than what Babette had told him, but there was nothing new. However, she had started her story from a specific point in time. The fall of the World Eater. That tied in an element of the picture he had never considered, because it seem the complete opposite of everything he was dealing with. He needed nothing more, now. He knew what to do, even if his saw no reason to do it. _I'm dragging myself forward with sheer willpower, but how long is it going to last?_ Nevertheless, he had his answer.

Karliah closed the iron door behind her while he was already in the middle of the room. 'I can hear your mind sizzling from all the way over here,' she said, chuckling. 'Was that helpful?'

'It was.' _More than you probably can realize._ Just by doing a momentary analysis of his mind, he understood that everything was clearer now more than ever if taking the time since he had been turned into account. It was miles away from the cold, still and awaken concentration that he felt before, but it was a start. _I see now why some people crave or willingly accept vampirism. The body doesn't weight you down anymore, nor does your mortality. And if you're like me and there seems to be any reason to live, you are given one._ What he had done, thus far, was a barter. His mental clarity in exchange more strength and nimbleness. The possibility to work in the bright daylight in exchange for even more capabilities during the night.

However, as his dealings in the organizations he led demonstrated, he wasn't one who took a barter like that. He was infamous for getting something in exchange for practically nothing. _That's what I'm trying to do,_ he thought. It had been his idea since leaving the Sanctuary, almost a week before. He had the intention to keep his new gifts, but he wasn't willing to permanently sacrifice any of the things he had lost in that deal. _And speaking of deals…_

'If you've nothing to add, let's talk business,' he said, looking over his shoulders. Karliah quickened her pace to get by his side and listened, without uttering a word. They took the stairs leading upwards, to the exit, leaving behind that hall filled with corpses. 'Tell me about the two noblemen we dealt with when I last came by.'

'They returned to Solitude and they set everything up.' She stopped, as if choosing her words cautionsly. 'I can't know what was on their mind, but they seem to be out of their element. I think their only motive for doing that was the thought of easy gold, but there is more involved. Brynjolf has ordered Rune to reposition to Solitude for the time necessary to get them accustomed. I've arranged a couple of jobs and an operation overview for him while he's there.'

'They did look somewhat lost. After they've gone through this first period, reduce the percentage they owe us.'

'As you wish.' She cast a glance at the doorman, dead and throw to the side The bruises on the neck and the thin graze on the collarbone suggested suffocation. 'They look to be a steady source of income, once they get used to their new life,' she said, shifting her gaze. 'They also don't seem to be in a dangerous position right now, and Erikur has agreed to cover them. Everything they're doing seems legal commerce if looking at the records, after Sapphire has tweaked them.'

'Even if they do slip once, it doesn't matter. I can pull a few strings in Solitude.' He walked up the stairs, bracing. The Sun was still low on the horizon, but the feeling was never pleasant. He focused back on what Karliah had told as soon as he could, because there was something that interested him. 'You mentioned Sapphire has gone to Solitude.'

'She did, to create the first connection with the merchants and to adjust the registers. A standard job. Why do you ask?'

'I wanted to know which way the wind blows in the Capital.'

'It doesn't look good. The truce you negotiated isn't considered any longer because the Dragons have been defeated. Some are even starting to whispered that there was never such a thing as an armistice and that the two warring parties stopped just because of the cold season. Either way, the Legion is dispatching couriers all over the land and relocation its detachments to the advanced camps. There was a squad of scouts sent out by Tullius on the mountains east of Whiterun that was expected to send a report three days before Sapphire left, but nothing had yet arrived. Word in the streets was that it had been the Stormcloaks. All around, signs of the approaching war are many. Some merchants aren't moving any longer. Even we at the Guild are having trouble finding someone who's willing to deliver messages and men from the Rift to Windhelm.'

'The Rift has more strategic value to the Empire than it does to Ulfric,' the Dragonborn said. _The Stormcloaks never had a good hold on the southern part of the province._ 'What is interesting for us is Markarth. The Empire can't renounce the income it was receining from that region. They'll try to retake it, and the city won't be able to hold an imperial siege for too long.'

'But that's good for us, isn't it?'

'Partly. The Stormcloaks won't be able to sent reinforcements over there, which makes the outcome inevitable. Once the city is once again in Imperial hands, then yes. It will be good. But while the siege is occurring, commerce will be utterly blocked.' Azrael looked back, straight into her eyes. The plan was clear in his head, he just needed her to understand. Her gaze was focused, which could only mean that she had picked up on everything. 'If that siege takes place, we need to shorten it.

'And how do we do it?'

'There are tunnels beneath Markarth, which connect the inside to the outside of the city. Contact Wildach at the Sanctuary, he'll provide you with maps of the abandoned mines. Once you have them, sell them to the lowest ranking official you can find for as much gold as you can get.'

'We will do as you say,' she replied. She was facing away from him, looking in front of her and probably lost in her own thinking. 'Back when Gallus led us, I'd never imagine we would interfere with politics and wars.' There was a chuckling note in her voice, a subtle and almost sorrowful irony. 'We have come a long way.'

'Gallus was an orthodox leader,' Azrael replied. It wasn't the first time they had that conversation. 'He saw the Guild for what it was and accepted it. I won't. Our association has the potential to do incredible things and I won't settle for anything less.'

The Dragonborn stepped out of the door, remaining for a split second in the stark sunlight. His undead flesh contracted in pain and he felt it heating. The warmth seeped through the skin and touched the softer parts of his body, making the ingested blood boil and scorching him from within. _And to think I just fed,_ he thought, his eyes moving frantically around in search for the nearest place covered by a pine-tree's shade. It was a few meters away, and he immediately treaded in that direction. _It's hard to even understand the nature of the pain_. He was noticing something for the first time. _It's simple presence eats away at my lucidity. My mind gets restless and uses energy to search a spot not reached by sunlight._ By putting several pieces of information together, he was coming to realize that even his moments of insanity hadn't been caused by one thing only, but by the coexistence of several factors. _Factors that can probably be taken care of separately._

Upon reaching the tree's shadow, he immediately felt less tense. He had spied that conifer upon entering the Den. The broadleaves which covered the vast majority of the Rift still carried buds that hadn't bloomed, and the shadows they cast were insignificant. A pine-tree or a fir was a luxury, but one he had to rely on in those times. As long as he was on horseback he could tolerate the weakness that spread throughout him, but not while standing on the ground with his own feet. He could hardly stand, and his legs were constantly threatening of failing him. While not directly struck by the light though, he felt much better.

Azrael turned around and leaned against the trunk and directed his gaze to Karliah once again. He caught a few glimpses of the scenery behind her, gathering only fragments of it. His lips thinned a s thought traversed his mind. _Ambition on her side, which I lost,_ he thought while eyeing Karliah, _and appreciation of the world around me, which I also lost._ In those last days, almost two weeks by that time, he had found himself absorbed by pointless thinking. He didn't feel the calm and the composure that allowed him to admire what lied around him, because what went on in his mind frightened him. However, he knew that it wasn't by trying to start doing those things again that he would conquer his problems.

The solution still awaited for him. But before, there were two last things he needed to settle. He looked at her and crossed his arms. 'Did Laegiine deliver my directions?'

'She did,' the she-Dunmer answered readily. 'We were more careful with out next delivery. We paid a joining member a small amount to give a closed package to Isran himself. We knew he welcomes new recruits personally, so there were no risks of it being taken by someone else.' Her tone was more energetic than normal. Azrael found it strange, but their racial affinity aided him in understanding her feelings. Financing the Dawnguard had been one of the first things she had decided to do that aligned with Azrael's views of expanding the Guild's influence outside of their previous range. She was quite clearly proud of what she had done. 'We also,' she added, 'left a note in the money explaining where the rest had gone.'

Azrael nodded slowly. 'Good. Schedule the delivery of next sum as you like, but not sooner than a full week.' He waited for a moment, making sure she had understood the information and hadn't any questions that wouldn't be answered by his explanation. 'Within that time, new orders might come from me to annul it. Otherwise, continue until you consider it necessary. Clear?'

She looked back at him hesitantly. 'Yes,' she murmured faintly.

'Another thing.' Thankfully, she hadn't asked for any explanation. 'A while back, I asked the mages in Winterhold to contribute in counteracting the vampire threat. Any signs?'

'Yes indeed,' she said, her eyes brightening up. 'I knew it was you,' she whispered under her breath, 'they didn't mention anything but I could have bet it was you. They have written letters and contacted every mage in the province. Word on the streets is that they're coordinating them to fight the vampire threat. Brynjolf says it's quite an event and they haven't poked their noses out of their College ever since Red Mountain erupted.'

As always, the shard of satisfaction he felt filled his body strongly, as if intensified. 'Good,' he said, emotionlessly.

'I imagine you're going somewhere, but I don't understand where.'

The swiftness of her words surprised him, and she wasn't someone who talked before having thought about what to say. The only option was that she had been thinking about that phrase, that sentence hiding a question he wasn't willing to answer, for a long time. Azrael focused his gaze back on her hooded face. He had drifted away for a moment, peering into the limitless landscape of his own mind, but now he looked straight into her pupils, sometimes moving to her large, violet irises. 'A place my return from which isn't guaranteed.'

Karliah's features, unexplainably, seemed to relax. 'You already went to such a place once,' she said. 'And you came back in one piece. You will return once again.'

Azrael felt something deep stirring, somewhere that Babette had managed to move a few days before, but not to that level. _They trust me,_ he thought. _They believe in me. Blindly._ On the one hand, he still found it incredible. On the other, he couldn't fathom why he had never even considered it until that moment. _If I trusted myself as much as they do in me, much of my problems would be inexistent. I don't feel anywhere as strong as I appear, from what I can see._

'We shall see.' Azrael turned his gaze away slightly. 'Farewell, Karliah.'

She was imperceptively stiff. 'Farewell, Azrael. Eyes open, and walk with the shadows.'

Azrael could read many things in her eyes as she turned away, headed towards the back of the dilapidated house that acted as entrance to Redwater Den. There were questions lingering in her eyes. She wanted to know where he was going. _And, somehow, she realized I wasn't well. She wanted to know why I was suffering._ Those were hard answers. During the last moments with her, the mere act of speaking felt as is it inflicted physical pain. _She probably wanted to help._ But how? _She could cure the symptoms, but I want the disease eradicated. That's just the problem with everyone I meet across this gods-forsaken plane. Everybody is good at curing symptoms, but the ones like me who cure diseases is small. Unbelievably small._

He looked West, where his next destination was. _Babette was right. My egocentrism is my saving grace._ There had been people who were strong, but most of them probably felt as he did. They didn't feel as strong within as everyone seemed to believe they were. In time, they accepted the reality of other as their own and they bowed and bent, offering their lives to the people they were acclaimed by. _The strong become the prisoners, if they're not careful._ They served the ones who were just as strong as them but that had not found the courage to be. _Most heroes are fools. Good-natured, pleasant ones, but fools all the same. At length, they come to live for the ones they defend. I'm not. I live for myself and only myself. That's my saving grace, but it's also what makes being me so difficult. It's my burden to bear, and I bear it gladly._ However, the moment had come when he would need someone's help, someone who could share that weight in order for him to stand straight once more.

' _Od Ah Viing_!'

* * *

A/N: If you're wondering about that "waterproof" part, I twisted the concept behind the enchantment "Water-breathing" and imagined that it could also function to block the water of the helmets. It's probably a long shot, but not a huge one.

After reading it back through to check for spelling and the like, I realized how much clues there are to secondary storylines in this chapter. There's enough to drown in them. If I spotted them all, then they will be all addressed at some point, but I might have missed some that I have no intention of exploring. However, generally, the timespan between the end of _Godsplitter_ and _Day Keeper, Night Reaper_ will be cleared as we go on, along with the essential references to _The Assassin_ for those who haven't read it. Also, consider the fight with Salonia a teaser of future fights to come.

Lastly, thanks to you, AbnormalNormality, for reviewing. I don't have anything to add. I'm just glad you like _DKNR._

As always, I'll see you in the next one.


	15. Chapter XIV: Ender of Worlds

Chapter XIV: _Ender of Worlds_

* * *

The Red Dragon waved his enormous, opaque wings forwards, slowing down his advance. The flapping sound filled the Dragonborn's ears for a short moment. He glanced down at the ground, where the mighty gusts blew down, raising the shallow stratum of fresh snow that had fallen in the last few days. The flakes rose in the flurry, cast into the air and shining brightly in the light of the Sun. Some of them, risen by only a few inches, fell back on the thick, impenetrable snow field that covered the top of the Throat of the World. The Sun couldn't melt them before they touched the ground. Even its heat was insignificant in comparison with the cold that lingered at those heights.

Azrael averted his gaze, which could see little else than the endless expanse of the sky. He had never had the need for the Red Dragon to carry him anywhere since heading for Skuldafn. Exactly as the Dovah had told him, he had been mesmerized by how different the world looked from above. Its colors, its shapes, they way it fit all together in ways that he had only imagined or mentally reconstructed in his mind. It had all lied before him, in its greatness and true essence. Nothing about that journey had been even remotely ordinary, but it had all began with that flight. It had been the first of many things which had changed him forever. _A very sentimental definition, but not utterly untrue._ The idea of instant change was for some reason alluring to mortals, even to him. The truth, or what went the closest to the truth, was that every change takes place in a long span of time. _People who are unaware only recognize it once the whole process has gone down._

Back then, the vista only reinforced the impact the flight had had on him. It had been unexpected, the process had been incredibly fast. He had since then longed to return there and see Nirn from above, but he knew that it was a caprice he shouldn't have indulged. His disrespect for many things that belonged to the world below allowed him to do certain things that he many wouldn't dream to do. However, there was something immensely different about the Dragons and the sky they inhabited. He had never considered any one thing sacred and sometimes doubted his own knowledge of that concept, but if there was something he indeed considered hallowed, it was his brethren's realm. He knew he would only access it again when the time called for it. He hadn't taken that decision lightly, despite having made it quickly. _That's a difference I've learned after a long time._

And yet, in spite of the time he had yearningly waiting to fly the skies, he now felt unable to appreciate such beauty. His attention was invariably drawn inwards, just as had happened in the last two weeks. The deep green of the firs made him think of certain things while emerald-colored grasses, still striped with white by the snow snow, sent his thoughts somewhere else entirely. _It's as if the whole world is just a reflection of my mind._ The dark grey of the granite walls and gorges of the Throat of the World together with its diaphanous glaciers had cast him back to the strength and control that he had lost, making the thought obsessive and incessant. He had thought about it already, more than he should have, but since the feelings wasn't gone he followed the same pattern once again. He felt a myriad of things because of this, and a lot of them were directed towards himself, but knew he had to let them flow. _If I tried to resist every single one of them, I would have succumbed to madness._ He didn't really have a choice. _And having no choices means having no power._

Underneath him, the Red Dragon descended unhurriedly. The powerful whirlwinds caused by his wings waving in the effort slow down their descent continued to launch the snow into the air. The thin crystals rose even beyond the wings and fell down near him, on the back of the Dragon. The cold air seeped in his armor, vastly neutralized by the enchanted gambeson. _However, to be fair, the cold has been the last of my problems since I've been turned. It's of very little comfort, but that doesn't change the facts_. He didn't mind the cold anymore, and sometimes he completely failed to notice it.

The gusts of air stopped as the Dragon landed on its rear legs. Azrael grasped the spikes coming out of the Dragon's back more firmly, hearing the sound of the talons reaching down to the ground, producing a sharp scratching sound. Odahviing's claws had scratched the ice underneath the fresh snow. Azrael noticed him lowering his head and reading to stop completely by extending his wings gradually.

 _And here we are._ The Dragonborn swept his gaze around him as the Dragon withdrew his wings, positioning them on his sides and leaning on them, still scratching the ice with his claws and stabilizing. Azrael let go of the spikes and looked for a good spot to jump down to. He didn't keep looking too long, mainly because it was largely unnecessary. The top of the Throat of the World was unchanged since the last time he had been up there. Nothing about that place, not counting the specific amount of snow covering it, seemed to ever change. The very peak of the mountain, roughly a thirty ells above them, was hard to look at because of the light it reflected. The plateau where they had landed was also the same as always. It was the closest thing a mortal could see that resembled eternity.

Odahviing shook his head sideways, shaking the snow off his head. He brought his folded left wing backwards, which would allow Azrael to get down safely. He clasped the bony spikes on the Dragon's back with his hands once again and rose to his knees. He searched for a place where he could jump off. _The junction between the neck and the rest of the body is the lowest point._ As he moved his first steps, crouching on the Dragon's back, he smelt the fresh, pure air of the mountains, which always carried a scent he had trouble recognizing. _This once it feels different, though_. He could barely smell anything, in fact. He gripped the spike nearest to the spot where he could get off and turned around, lowering himself down until he heard the soles of his boots touching the snow, at which point he let go and landed. Very softly too. The thoughts about his stifled sense of smell were sharply replaced by others. _Lowering myself with all this caution was unnecessary,_ he thought. _I'm a lot lighter now than I used to be._ He had noticed it for the first time in the crypt, when he had first had the later confirmed suspicion that Serana would be very easy to carry. A body without water loses much of its weight. _That's also probably the reason why Vampire Lords can fly,_ he mused, raising a hand in front of his eyes to cover them from the light reflected by the snow and turning around.

In front of his there was a Nordic Word Wall. The sight of it was very familiar. That semi-circular piece of architecture stood on the western rim of the mountain. The left half had been torn down a long time ago, while the right portion had remained standing. The metal decoration in the center had endured the test of time, but the iron was chipped and covered with rust. _I guess it still serves its purpose, however._ And that was true enough. The runes of the words in Dovahzul on the inside were still clearly carved in the stone, which was also damaged, but not ruined, and the Words could still be read after all that time. Azrael had read them once, the first time he had encountered Paarthurnax, who had used that wall as his perch for as long as he could remember.

 _And speaking of the Old One_. Paarthurnax was atop the destroyed part of the wall, as always. The barbed chin was slightly raised, the head still and its deep eyes looking intently at the Dovahkiin and the Red Dragon as they landed. Azrael looked back at him, not moving forward yet and observing the Dragon from the jaws to the tip of the tail. The spiky arches above the eyes and the long black horns which ended his flat forehead were reminiscent of his elder brother, but aside from that there wasn't much else that was similar. The scales, from the thicker of the back to the thinner ones on the abdomen, were bone white. The wings were folded and resting on the wall. Just as the place itself, he was the same as ever. There was just the bite marks on his neck, the scars that Alduin had left him, that reminded of the event that had transpired.

Azrael shifted his gaze and locked eyes with the Dragon. The gaze of his deep, golden eyes wandered over the Dragonborn's entire figure, as if searching. The semblance of curiosity he showed was different from its mortal counterpart, and combined the complete lack of anything that could resemble etiquette or a mortal's sense of modesty it made for an intense and penetrating gaze. ' _Dovahkiin, Thuri_ ,' he said, peering in the Dragonborn's eyes intently.

Azrael gave a short, slight bow of his head, hiding his own eyes from the Dragon's stare for a short moment. ' _Drem Yol Lok_. Greetings, Secondborn.'

More scratching noises came from behind him. Odahviing's claws scratching the ice once again, repeatedly. He cast a glance back to see, but he could guess that the Red Dragon was climbing on top of the boulder just above they spot where he landed. The talons of his wing were clutched firmly on the rock and he was using that hinge to drag himself upwards. Azrael turned his head around once again, his mind so caught up in its own muddles that he barely heard the rest of the noises. Paying attention to anything which was new and not utterly clear was a very useful, if not essential, habit of his. However, it quickly lost its grip on his reactions once all its cues had either ended or weren't relevant anymore. Besides, he could anticipate what the next sounds would have been. Some more scratches would have been followed by a final, longer sound of the Dragon finally pulling himself up on the rock. Odahviing already knew everything, which was why he had taken a comfortable place on top of the boulder. He knew he'd be standing there a while.

The Dragonborn's attention turned once again on Paarthurnax, and now that he had to repeat for the second time in less than an hour what he had already told the Red Dragon he felt overwhelmed. Now that he had to explain himself the reason for him being there, it all seemed all a mistake. _I could just tell Odahviing to bring me back and tell him not to utter a word to Paarthurnax. He wouldn't dare betray me._ That thought was just one of those who were sneaking in his mind, telling him to go back and do things his own way, like he had always chosen to do. _Being here is a mistake._

For the first time in what he could remember, he was alone against his own mind. Usually it had been himself, an entity which he had always thought to be freely interchangeable with his mind, against his body or, more rarely, against his feelings. Now it was himself against his own mind. _Which means…_ he thought, and this time it was a different thought, a higher version of thinking, _that I'm not my mind. I'm something else._ The revelation was as curious as it was dreading. Being something separate from his mind meant being nothing at all, pretty much.

He powered through his own antagonistic, lower thoughts and raised his gaze into the golden eyes of the Old One. ' _Aak Zu'u Yak_ ,' he said. The thing he most wanted in that moment was to be able to exhale in correspondence to his words, but he wasn't able. 'I seek your help on a matter that has already threatened me and the world around me.'

Paarthurnax lowered his head every so slightly. He averted his own gaze for a moment, just as Azrael had done in the beginning. ' _Thuri, Dovahkiin._ I am at your service.' The Dragon spoke slowly, his voice rough and cavernous, echoing inside his own inside before emerging from his throat. 'Of what _Kod…_ Of what usage can I be?'

The Dragonborn could refrain from speaking entirely. He had discussed this at length, by draconic standards, with Odahviing. He had no idea what exactly was happening to him and he couldn't think of anything that could frame it in a way that would be fully understandable to the Dragons. However, the Red Dragon had helped him. His ever-faithful second in command had advised him before, and now he spoke in his stead. From behind him, he heard his deeper, suffocated voice. ' _Jun,_ ' he said, ' _Krif Vokun Ko_.'

Even the initial, shallow understanding he had of the Words piqued his curiosity and stirred strange feelings inside him. _That's interesting…_ Azrael had trouble understanding the essence of what the Dragon had just said. He had referred to him as King, which still managed to evoke stronger emotions in him than most of the things that were left for him in the world. The banal translation for the phrase that followed would be that he was fighting against the darkness inside. But it was much more deep and complicated than that. _Krif_ didn't just mean fight, it was more specifically referred to a battle to the death, which was meticulously appropriate for what he had gone through. _Ko_ was simpler, but _Vokun_ wasn't. It was a darkness that didn't just mean the absence of light, but also a shadow that devours and swallows everything in its way. It was associated with the mortal concept of doom and, sometimes, evil. If he had chosen for himself, he would have picked the similar Word _Vulom,_ a darkness that is associated with loss of hope. Neither of the two was perfectly accurate, but it mirrored their point of view. _It's clear that what I see as something associated with despair, they see something associated with evil._

Once he had scrutinized the phrase for long enough, he looked once again at Paarthurnax, whose gaze was now strangely absent, not focused on either him or Odahviing. The Secondborn's jaws were moving slowly, in a motion that Azrael had never seen him execute before. A feeling, lone and without any clear origin, simmered to the surface of his consciousness. It was merely an intuition, or perhaps a premonition. _Sadness_. The thought was swept away by the sound of the wind, which grabbed all of his undirected attention. It was howling softly, raising small, white clouds on the edge of the mountain on which it blew, carrying the small crystals towards the North. The flakes would be carried by the breeze and fall somewhere in the other parts of Skyrim. _Maybe one of them will make it to Castle Volkihar._

A scratching sound brought him back. His sight ceased shimmering and focused accurately on the Old One, specifically on his grim gaze. Now, his previous intuition seemed more solid than before. The Dragon looked the draconic equivalent of troubled. ' _Aaz Hah So_ ,' he whispered. 'What would you have me do?'

Azrael took note of what he had said to be dissected immediately afterwards. He, as always, pushed back the inevitable feelings that came with those thoughts and regained his self-control. He knew what to answer. It was probably the part of the conversation he had imagined in more vivid detail. ' _Bel Fin Zeymah,_ ' he muttered, completely expressionless. He was amazed himself at the lack of life he had conveyed. He had overcompensated for the intensity of his fear. 'Beckon our kin, so they can judge me.'

There was a deeper understanding in the inhuman gaze of the Dragon than Azrael had seen in the eyes of any mortal in his entire lifespan. He had always been an outcast, someone who shared goals and perspectives with a very low number of people, if any, but it was only when his lonesomeness was reminded to him that he felt it. Paarthurnax slowly raised his neck, arching it to the sky slowly and gradually, the fang marks showing clearly on his neck. That very brief moment, most likely a one-way exchange, had shaken a congealed part of his deeper emotions. He never felt lonely and he never suffered because of that, but he had long lacked someone whom he could truly understand. Was that because of his melded, mixed soul? _I don't know. I can't know._ It could have just been that he was like that because of his shared soul, or that such a soul had been given to him because of that trait, or maybe it was something utterly incidental that didn't have any specific meaning in the _Vennesetiid,_ the Currents of Time, which he had once believed to be destiny itself.

The Secondborn looked to the sky for a moment longer. The Dragonborn waited, and while he did he also reflected on what he had just been told. The Old One had said something that couldn't be mistaken for anything else, not in the _Dovahzul. Aaz Hah So_. He had expressed his sympathies, he had told him that he knew what was plaguing him and he was immensely sorry for it. Even in the face of that, he still had trusted him and had acted according to his command. The mere fact that such a thing had been said confirmed what he had thought. Maybe all that he had gone through was indeed relevant and related to the Dragons and everything that had gone down while he was among them. The near future seemed to hold more answered than it had in a long while. _Too long._

Paarthurnax's straightened his neck and opened his mouth. ' _Dov!_ ' The scream tore Azrael away from the few thoughts still around, mostly because of the quake that traveled down his spine. The ground beneath him had seemed to shake and the air carried the sound as if it had become part of the sky itself. It rang loudly as it crashed against the mountain and the energy it irradiated was immense yet impalpable. Azrael felt himself being called forth and reacting. Calling all Dragonkin meant calling him, too. _The one who originally killed them._ The echo hadn't even began to die as the Dragon spoke again. ' _Dovrahkren Bel Hi!_ '

 _The Godsplitter summons you…_ Azrael translated silently, clenching his right hand into a fist and paying close attention to the sound made the sharp end of the gauntlet's fingers grazing the palm. The tension, incapable of dispersing in any other way, was taking the shape of strong tremors in his limbs. _Now I either live or die. By someone else's verdict._ Buried underneath endless layers of hazy thoughts, confused emotions and vibrant sensations arose a strange feeling of satisfaction. _Maybe, just maybe, I have broken free. This is what Harkon never expected me to do. This is what Alduin never did._ He had the unexplainable feeling of finding himself standing there without knowing why. But someway, somehow, he knew he was in the right place. Possibly, at the right time too.

Meanwhile, they had to wait. Not all Dragons would summon the call, but those who did could probably be not too far away at that time. Many of them were probably resting near their burial mounds or on their own lofty mountaintop. From the Throat of the World, the nests of the more ancient and revered among the Dov could be seen. They could be seen themselves when flying around them as they circled in the sky. Some did it for fun, others to scare away passing travelers, while others did it to flee away from danger. There were still dangerous things around Skyrim for a Dragon.

Azrael's thoughts went on a tangent, and he didn't mind. He sometimes felt like something in the complex architecture of his consciousness had yet to understand he was the leader, if it could be called that, of the Dragons. Before that, he had been their hunter and now he was their protector. One year had passed since their reappearance, more or less, and all sorts of methods had been employed to take them down. Very few of them ever worked and, to the Dragonborn's knowledge, none worked more than once. Still, it was best for them to be careful, and he was the one reminding them of that and telling them how to avoid contact with ill-intentioned _Joor._ Mortals. He was the one that had persuaded the Dragons to be peaceful towards them, right on the day he had defeated the World Eater and had become their lord. Alongside Paarthurnax, he had managed to make them agree to never hurt anyone unless it was to protect themselves. The strength of their word had been tested more than once in those few months, but not one of his subjects had defied him. A Dragon's word of honor is a lot more valuable than a mortal's, he had realized. They were cunning and intelligent creatures, but in their dealings they were sincere and honor-bound to the point of looking naive, by mortal standards. That was one of the reasons why he trusted that some of them would come, and that they would pass their judgment impartially.

 _Joor._ He thought about that Word for a moment. _The relation between the vampires and the Dragons as is intense as it is non-existing._ His gaze sharpened, and he found himself still looking towards the Old One. _I wonder if he noticed that I've been turned. Maybe it doesn't even matter to them._ That in itself would have been something interesting to consider. All Dragons are immortal, and that quality had been passed to him and was perpetuated thanks to his merged soul. What made a Dragonborn special was exactly the coexistence of mortal and immortal in his very lifeblood and soul. What he had become now was something strange. He was a being who possessed an immortal soul and an immortal body, but they were not the same thing. Likewise that was never meant to be. There was no way to know how his brethren would acknowledge it, if they even would. Paarthurnax had looked unfazed by the change of color of his eyes, but that meant ever so little.

A new, distant pounding of wings made him turn around. He could hear it clearly if he paid close attention. _There's two there. Three actually,_ he counted, making out the shapes with some difficulty due to the light of the Sun. Two were coming from the North, and yet another one from the West. More would come, but they were farther away and not as strong. Even at that distance, he recognized at least two of them. _A king knows his subjects. Even among mortals, if to a degree._ And even among mortals, a king does know his most important subjects, such as those who were approaching.

Fodaantuz came from Mount Anthor. _The Blade of Frosty Doom._ Azrael knew him very well. That ancient member of Dragon-kind had been Alduin's trusted general for a time, and had been among the first to be resurrected. He had ever since remained in the mountains, awaiting further commands from his lord. The day had never come, and during the wait he had terrorized the nearby lands indiscriminately. Long fangs emerged from his jaws and thick horns ran along his neck. The frame, relatively small for a Dragon of that age, was marked by light blue traces that intertwined with the pale violet of his head and back scales. His breath, of the coldest frost, had been the dread of many Skyrim merchants and even more members of his own kin, in the days of yore. After Alduin's defeat, he had yielded gracefully and had been one of the last to leave the circle after the decision. He was revered as wise and cunning. Odahviing had told him his story, along with some sage advice: always consider his counsel.

Nahmuldinok was the one that came from the West. _The Wrathful Strength of Death._ If Fodaantuz was the sage one, then he was the berserk. A thick ridge of bones encircled the burning, sizzling eyes of one of Alduin's bodyguards, one of the fiercest fighters among all the Dov. His deep orange scales were stained with black in multiple parts of his form, especially on the abdomen, and the wings bore the longest claws among the Dragons. He had no real home and ventured across the land, punishing trespassers. He was a born hunter and adored killing, which made his self-restraint in respecting the Dragonborn's peace that much more important. ' _Mey Aal ni Mindok,_ ' Odahviing had told him. 'It would be most foolish to ignore his might.' But unlike many strong mortals Azrael had encountered, Nahmuldinok valued his own strength enough to not see any shame in submitting it a higher authority.

The third, the one coming from the North along with Fodaantuz, was Vulahvonun. ' _Dovahkiin, Thuri!_ ' he roared, bending to the left and tracing a wide circle above them in his flight, preparing to land in the vicinity. _The Obscure Hidden Hunter._ He was an agile one, a scout and a very nimble fighter. Him and the Dragonborn had fought once when they were still enemies. _I even won that fight._ The Dragonborn, however, had never been able to finish off the weakened enemy as he flew away swiftly, avoiding all of his arrows.

' _Dovrahkren._ ' It was Odahviing's voice, from behind him. Azrael turned around, crossing eyes with the Dragon and spotting a grim shade in his pale, red-marked eyes. ' _Pruzah Bo Gut._ It would be wise of you to leave your _Kendov…_ Your subjects, to discuss.'

In the azure sky, more Dragons were coming.

* * *

First the tremor, which shook his shoulders and almost made his neck hurt. Then the sound, loud enough to be partially heard as a muffled hiss. Somehow the vibration seemed to be still lingering. The snow around him was slightly shifted and hewn, as if touched by the sound as well. Only after a moment Azrael realized that the quake and the sound hadn't followed one another, but were the same thing. _A Dragon's roar?_ he thought, that being the only thing he could associate something so strong to. The anatomy of the blare was the one of a thunder, but there weren't any clouds in the sky.

Bringing some attention away from the identification of the sound, he detected his body's reaction all at once. The hand had so automatically risen from his lap and darted towards his shoulder that he had barely noticed it, while the other was already dug in the snow, pressing against the ice underneath and providing a great pivot in case he would need to rise abruptly. His legs were tensed and ready to straighten at any follow-up sign of danger. Aside from these normal ones, he could clearly tell the ones tied to the vampiric side of his reactions. His eyes felt heated, sparkling, and the surface of his body was experiencing a heightened sense of touch. The same thing was happening to his teeth, as before, which felt the cold more accurately than anything. Overall, the sense of agitation was very strong.

 _All right, calm down…_ he thought, employing the same scornful tone he sometimes reserved for other to himself, something that had started happening only recently. _Focus._ His eyes were fixed on the horizon, in the direction of the Velothi Mountains. _Beyond them lies my old home_. Despite that being the first thing he could think of while looking at them, he had spent a very short amount of time thinking about it. Nothing about his absorption in his own thoughts had changed. As had happened during the flight, every element of the landscape immediately sent him back to a feeling that had no image in his own mind. He realized only then that he had been distracted again. _Fine, fine, but what's happening now?_

He tried to recall anything that might have been of use. During the time that had passed, he heard the Dragons at intervals. Sometimes he did and even tried to grasp everything that they were saying, and at others he couldn't have told if they were silent or not. The discussion had been getting more heated as time went by. He couldn't tell exactly how much had passed. _I haven't looked at the Sun when we arrived here, and there's no other way to guess. Although…_ The light was still strong and partially hidden behind the peak, which meant it was still in the southern part of the sky. It was shortly after noon, if that was the case. As little as half and hour had passed, or maybe more. Regardless, since the second half of that time had ensued, the roars had been getting louder and some short gushes of fire and ice had been spewed out. _So that was a roar indeed. It was different, though. This once it's probably best to check._

He leaned on his right arm and rose to his feet, aided by the low weight of his body and the strength brimming in his muscles. _I almost forget about it every time I stop moving._ He was moving hurriedly, but the reflexes tied to the mindset of fighting were playing out as per usual. His right arm checked if the potions were in place, his left if belt and bandoliers were well fixed and if the cloak was tied correctly around his neck. Lastly, if both of his weapons could be pulled out within fractions of the following second.

' _Ruth Strun Bah!_ ' The sound came from behind as he was still turning around. Azrael he recognized the voice nonetheless. It was the same Dragon that had screamed a moment before, and the meaning of the Words he spoke mirrored the fury that had echoed in his previous roar. ' _Faaz Nah!_ '

' _Kren sosaal!_ '

Azrael recognized that second voice too, but the information remained tucked away somewhere else in his mind. He had now turned fully, and the first set of information he wanted to scrutinize was the once coming from his eyes. The infinite details that crammed his field of vision went almost unnoticed, and he focused on the movement, which was all centered in the middle. A Dragon, a young one, with green scales and a large flat tail, had brought his wing forward, signaling a clear threat. He was no doubt the one who had roared before. _How bad is it? Claws extended. The rear leg…_ The talons of one of the rear legs were stuck in the eyes, and would aid a sudden charge forward. Azrael cocked an eyebrow instinctively in an ironic gesture. _It's all about to go down._

The adversary of that fiery youngling was none other than Odahviing himself. _The little one either has a death wish or really was troubled by what was said._ The Red Dragon was taking on a high stance, ready for a defense. His neck was bent to the side, an automatic response in Dragons that anticipated the way they moved their heads when they bit to kill. _It's too late_ , Azrael thought, unable to see a peaceful conclusion to that confrontation. Nothing had happened already, but it was as if it had already.

He glanced up at the other Dragons, because there didn't seem to be anything going on among them. True enough, none of them was moving. _That's almost good, under a certain light,_ he thought, after a short moment of consideration. _If no one is meddling, it means that they don't know what side to choose. That might mean that a difficult point has been touched, and possibly a core one._ Nothing could change the fact that the two would clash in a matter of moments. _Actually…_ He mused, noticing the green Dragon closing the talons of his rear leg, _right now._

The young Dragon had reclined both wings and arched his back, grazing the rock underneath his legs with the end of the talons. Even among the cavernous breathing, it could be heard distinctly. With a brief, sharp movement of the wings he gained the strength to dash forward with enough strength to reach Odahviing, who was not very far from the Word Wall, right under Paarthurnax's shadow. The young one's frame blurred as he darted forward, raising the snow from underneath his legs with the claws. Azrael caught a glimpse of the jaws opening and aiming for the side of the elder Dragon's head.

The great gust caused by the sudden movement of such a large mass blasted Azrael with enough strength to make him recoil. He moved his left foot backward and turned his head around, and even then small flakes of snow reached his throat. He heard a thump and a vicious growl, but waited for the only sound that would mean something. The Red Dragon had probably understood the other one's tactic right as he moved, so he should have known that he was about to be bitten if he didn't move. _Any second now…_ The snap of jaws closing on themselves, together with the sound of fangs grinding together, confirmed his suspicion that Odahviing hadn't been caught off guard.

He turned his head around again now that the fight was more static. He heard a bump, which he quickly identified as the Red Dragon smashing into his adversary as he backed away slightly. He had brought his head out of the young one's alignment and prevented the bite from connecting that way. _That's a defensive move, though. How is he going to react?_ Azrael watched, his interested piqued by his second in command's tactic. Odahviing wasn't the strongest among the Dov, but he was among the most lethal. He was nimble for his size, and he was clever. He would not back down unless he had a very specific reason for doing so, and for the time being the Dragonborn could not see it. _I probably could, if had possession of all my mental capabilities,_ he said to himself bitterly in noticing the chatter going on in the back of his mind even then, but pushed away the thought.

Through some very basic predictions he could guess what was going to happen. There weren't any surprises ahead, from what he could see. The young one, after the impetuous charge, had lost some of his momentum. The tail was flat on the ground and he would need a lot of strength to attack with that, which made it stupid. The only thing he could move reliably was the wing, and as soon as he could he rose his right once and brought it down to the ground where the back of the Red Dragon was.

Another strong gust came from the movement, but this time Azrael had already his foot backwards and endured the rush of air. The impact of the wing's claws on the ground came as a sound muffled by the snow, and as soon as he ripped the talon out of the white entire plates of icy snow were thrown into the air. The Dragonborn hadn't paid attention to Odahviing's precise movements, but he had dodged the strike. That was enough to know. His spike nose was emitting hazes of light-colored vapor, which dispersed quickly as the Dragon bent his head backwards to the side with a deep growl. _Oh yes…_ Azrael said to himself, right as the Red Dragon brought his head in front of him once again. He had the time to move his head away. _I've been on the receiving side of that._

' _Yol Toor Shul!_ '

Azrael didn't see the flames come out of the Red Dragon's jaws, but he saw their scorching coils licking the snow and vaporizing it. A bright shimmering light came from the direction of the Dovah's head. The only thing that was left in his sight was one of the rear legs and the tail of the green Dragon. The flames rushed even that far, spiraling around the scales and enveloping their frames. They burned and vanished moments after, without leaving a single trace in the air, and then more of them came. There was no smoke nor vapor left behind. The fiery flow kept on going, but the rumbling sound of the fire being spewed was getting ever so quiet. _That's the clearest sign._

Azrael began to turn his head around again, and as he did he heard a sonorous crash. _That I did not foresee._ The sound had been echoless and deep, but he had heard it before during the fight. As he looked again, he saw Odahviing very near to his adversary and moving his wing to try and keep him in place. Azrael understood then. It had been the impact between the scales. Now, the rasping sound of Odahviing growling of anger was the strongest reaching his ears.

The Red Dragon withdrew his neck, menacingly opening his maws. The teeth, each of them as long as Azrael's dagger at the very least, blinked in the sunlight. _What is he doing? The neck is tense, but the rest of the body isn't._ With a quick calculation, he guessed the estimate distance between Odahviing and the green Dragon was lower than the ones the former could reach if he decided to bite. _That would be clever, actually._ It was hard to say if it was a result of the Red Dragon's tactics or pure combination of events, but the young one was exposed and had very little chances of protecting himself. Azrael couldn't infer anything new before Odahviing lunged and snapped his jaws.

' _Fus!_ '

A tidal wave of snow rose in front of the two fighters and was propelled backwards. The frames of both Dragons disappeared for a moment in the cascade of icy crystals, from which came vicious growls and then a sharper scream. It covered every other sound as the flakes began to deposit, allowing Azrael to glimpse at the scene again _._ He had his other hypothesis of what had occurred, but he wanted to see to be sure. _Just a moment longer._ The snow kept falling down, and he believed he could see it clearly enough. The green Dragon was immobile, only his head was moving frantically from left to right. A red frame, what he could see of Odahviing, overlapped with the green one where the latter became thinner, and as yet more crystals fell down to the ground, there were no more doubts left. _Odahviing is biting through his neck from the side._

There was a sudden and hard snap, which resounded for a moment in the Dunmer's ears, covering the silence just a little longer. _I wonder if I'm only imagining it._ _Time feels… slower_. He wasn't moving himself, and there seemed to be a strange lack of movement around, an impression that lasted but a few instants. The Red Dragon opened his jaws. Azrael detected the head of the green Dragon bending forward imperceptibly, and so did the part of the neck closer to his core, while the fangs of Odahviing almost touched one another. He crossed gazes with the Red Dragon, and there was something new in them. The red lines that marked them were evidently more vivid. The lifeless head of the young one dangled forward momentarily. It swung once. The scales were still stuck and bound by the teeth, but the weight would do its work given the time. It swung twice. The parts closer to the center of Odahviing's maws were splintered. It swung for the third time. The movement was slow and hypnotic, but it fell down as it moved for the fourth time.

The snow gave way and buried the head up to the higher jaw, leaving the vitreous eye emerging just above the layer of white. The small part of the neck attached to it was marked by two deep incisions. They were the signs of the teeth that were not meant to rip away, but to chew. The scales closer to the chewed off piece were split and broken. _Odahviing's teeth are intact, incredibly_ , Azrael noticed, sincerely surprised. He wondered if they were naturally this hard to break or if they got more resistant as time passed by.

On the other side of the Red Dragon's head, the headless carcass had collapsed a moment before. The rear legs, tensed and out of balance, bent and dropped down, buried by the snow. The abdomen, the heavier part, dipped inside the white as well and dragged down the tail, the flat end of which prevented it from plunging below the superficial layer. The neck, the longer part, fell to the side and managed to crack the solid surface of the snow, which submerged in it up to almost half its diameter.

' _Vahzah…_ ' Odahviing growled.

Azrael was distracted from what was going on around him, because a silent whisper had began to fill his ears as well as his body. He knew he would not be able to anything that would happen externally in the next few seconds. All the winds that were blowing seemed to gather and blow towards him in unison, while the scales of the young one began to dissolve. He felt shaken in all direction, managing to stand only because the forces pushing him around were equal from all directions. The scales, what might seem to a mortal as little more than organic plates, were softening. The winds carried the torn fragments in currents, long streams of pure energy that shone blue and orange as they came closer to the Dragonborn and enveloped his body. He had to brace strongly when he felt the defeating echo of the green Dragon's fear, felt in the final moments before his demise.

Azrael felt himself shaking, and that once he could testify once again that he was completely captivated by the energy flowing in him to notice anything. He could safely classify the absorption of a brother's soul as one of the moments of highest intensity he could remember. His first kill fell somewhat near, but it was a lonely example. He had also noticed that with every knew Dragon he killed, he noticed more things. His first times, only the staggering difference between mortal and draconic thought had seemed apparent, but afterwards he had began to notice so much more. An eternity of knowledge, desire and experience were passed on to him, and although much of it was inaccessible to his mind, he could still feel its presence. He was largely unable to think when receiving all those information, and perhaps it was for the best. He managed to welcome everything without judgment, this way.

However, when thinking came back, he still wasn't keen on making a hasty analysis. _This time in particular,_ he thought, recovering from the overwhelming sensation, _I don't mean to judge him in any way._ As he had felt the fear of the Dragon right before he died, he had made his decision. _He has to live. Merely killing was what I did as a hunter of Dragons._ Now he was more. He was their kin, and the one who had been killed was his subject. _Speaking strictly in mortal terms._ He understood that that young Dovah probably had little appreciation for him, hot-headed he was, but Azrael was not Alduin. He and his brethren had to all walk the same path together, and even this young one would respect the one who had defeated him.

He waited for the senses to come back. The blue and orange shades stopped gleaming in front of him almost instantly, right after the sound and feeling of the winds pushing him around had diminished. The sense of touch crept back all the way to the tip of his fingers, feeling the flawlessly-modeled metal of the gauntlet on both sides. He felt the weight of the armor dragging him down to the ground and the sounds disappeared once by one, only to be replaced by the real sound of the mountain breeze and the rhythmic breathing of the Dov perched on the rocks in front of him. He was back to his normal state, and his eyes hadn't moved. Now they stared at a skeletal figure, the bones covered by white crystals of snow.

He closed his eyes. The fibers of his body trembled, being drained of their energy. That force was channeled through his body and blood, imbuing him with the nature of the Word and altering his perception briefly. The world assumed entirely new colors for the moment the force overflowed, just before he could release it completely. As per usual since the transformation, everything felt amplified. The surge that ran from his chest and gut upwards to his throat shook his lungs and his neck, resting in his gorge and shaking strongly, waiting to be set free.

' _Slen Tiid Vo!_ '

 _It's a strange feeling…_ Energy had flowed inwards before. The soul of his older brother had fused with his own and now it was torn away again, carrying along a small fraction of his own being. The wind blew out of him this once, because he was the source. It carried the soul to its true owner. The feeling had not been pleasant the first time around and it wasn't now. _It's as if…_ Azrael thought, fighting to maintain his clarity. _It's as if something was ripped out of me._ His body almost couldn't contain the fleeting energy, which flowed out all in one like a shadow of him that split from his physical form. The fists were clenching, the lungs felt completely empty. There was a fleeting thought in his mind. _He has stolen from you._ Depending on the point of view, that could have been considered partially true.

As the energy left him, Azrael felt immensely tired and confused. _As much as I claim to use this for the good of the Dragons, it's something that was never meant to be. Just as Dragonrend was, or even worse._ His whole body, his limbs specifically, trembled and vibrated. His sight, previously altered by the use of the Words, was now blurred and unclear. He could feel his eyes burning brightly. His vampiric functions were probably trying, and failing, to understand what had happened and trying to make it work again. _Another two things that were never meant to interact, it would seem. Well, I've controlled unnatural things before._

As his vision cleared, he looked at the green Dragon, but he couldn't ignore all the Dragons on the sides of his field of vision who, with no exceptions, were bowing their heads. He moved his gaze from one with a flat head and lean frame to a white and blue one to the one just beside, who was Nahmuldinok the berserk. His head was lowered, but he also seemed to be moving his jaws. _What is he doing?_ Azrael shifted his gaze from him to the one perched just above him and then to yet another, and they were all doing that. Their mouths were moving, so slowly and slightly that he almost hadn't noticed, but they were all moving as one. The question arose immediately, even before the sense of curiosity. _What are they saying?_ He thought he couldn't hear them at first, but that probably because the imagined sound of the wind had been strong enough to dull his hearing.

If he listened intently, he could hear it. ' _Ofan Zii Du'ul_.' It was merely a whisper, and it came repeatedly. They were not uttering a long phrase. There weren't in the Dragon Tongue. ' _Ofan Zii Du'ul_.' He had never heard the phrase and he found if very difficult to understand. His understanding of the Words that were akin to the concepts of things that were violent, dark and abstract was strong enough, and those three Words were nothing of the sort. The easier was the last one, _Du'ul,_ which meant a physical embodiment of symbol of power. Paarthurnax had once used it alluding to a crown. _Zii_ meant the life essence, while also encompassing the concepts of soul, spirit and consciousness in a broader sense. _Ofan_ , despite being a known Word, was one he struggled with. While banally referring to the act of giving, it carried a meaning that he had yet to comprehend fully. ' _Ofan Zii Du'ul_.' The Dragons were recognizing the goodness of his ends and showing acceptance to the means with which it was given. _It's as subtle as it is interesting,_ he thought. _They're saying that I give life through my power, but they're also saying that giving life is the symbol of my power._ While a phrase with a double meaning as something difficult to construct in mortal languages, it was something immediate in the _Dovahzul_.

With his sight now clear, he looked at the young one. The green Dragon was lying on his chest, still too weak to lean on his wings or stand on his legs. Weak, but alive. The last fragments, shimmering in the sunlight, were hovering above his still translucid scales and coming in contact with them. Azrael looked the Dovah in the eyes, but he didn't seem to have any intention of looking back for now. There was no hostility in their golden light, however. ' _Hi Ni Vokul_ ,' said he. A light cloud of smoke came out of its mouth. ' _Krosis._ I was hasty to judge.' His voice was less rough than the ones of his older brethren, and there was a note in it that he had rarely heard in other Dragons' voices before. There was pride in it, but of the kind that isn't arrogant. He wasn't one who fell into melancholy as the older ones did. _And as I do, as well._ With a tired, almost sluggish movement of the head, the young Dragon looked back at him decisively. ' _Zu'u_ Naaknahlol. _Thuri, Dovahkiin._ '

He put down both legs on the ground and pushed, leaning on the bent wings to have some more strength. _Naaknahlol_ , mused Azrael, trying to remember if he had never heard that name before. He didn't think so. He would have remembered him. _That roughly means Devourer. It's fitting, for one that aggressive._ Paarthurnax had once explained him that there is never such a thing as a name that fits a Dragon's character. The name and the character are the same thing. One doesn't come before the other, as they're inseparable. That seemed very true for Naaknahlol, who now stood on his own feet and backed away from the battleground and stopped on its rim.

Azrael felt his flesh filling with frustration as he tried and failed to draw a deep breath. _We're close to the solution, with some probability,_ although that was a thought he didn't felt as his own. It was cautiously optimistic, which meant he hoped something good would happen. When hope became a factor, it meant the situation wasn't under his control anymore. Despite having just dealt with a very difficult situation, something that couldn't be denied rationally, he felt an insatiable urge to push forward. _Almost as if I was afraid of stopping._ He tucked away his thoughts and feelings, even though the Dragons would have certainly given him time to process them, and raised his gaze.

He stood in the middle of the plateau, and all the Dragons perched on the rocks above could hear him and see him. He cast his eyes around him. Paarthurnax observed silently from the top of the Word Wall and Odahviing had backed, now with his wings folded on his back and the cruel light gone from his eyes. His gaze returned once more to the Dov that waited on the side of the peak. ' _Drem. Onikaan_ ' Peace and Wisdom, he said. ' _Fun Miiraad Drun._ ' He wanted to know which choice they had made.

Off to the side, he heard a low grumbling. _Fodaantuz,_ he recognized at once, knowing instantly where to turn his head towards. ' _Motmahus…_ ' the Dragon murmured, bending his horned head to the side and directing a gaze more penetrating than every mortal's in Azrael's hidden eyes. ' _Faas Vul Ko_. The _Dov_ fear the darkness you could bring.'

Azrael was struck by the old Dragon's literal but inaccurate translation of _Drun_ , which didn't just mean carrying or bringing but also ushering in, because the cause of something. The various branches of reasoning that tried to understand what exactly he could mean by that were all interrupted by Paarthurnax's grumbling from beside him. Dragons always murmured or muttered something indistinct before they started speaking, which was turning out to be particularly useful when there were so many of them. He turned towards the Old One, who was logically the one who had the deeper understanding of both the mortal plane and the Dragon's mind.

' _Un Zeymah,_ our brethren, fear that the same darkness that gripped Alduin has now conquered you.' His voice was as slow and serious as the first moments after his return to Nirn, after defeating the World Eater. This time he wasn't sad, but worried. ' _Vokun_. Be wary of the darkness, _Dovahkiin,_ because something has waken it.'

Azrael lost himself in the intensity of the insight. _Indeed, the problem ran a lot deeper than I might have expected. And, as both Babette and Karliah said, it traces back further in time than I first thought._ Despite looking like it, vampirism wasn't the biggest problem. It had never been. _Once again, perceptions prove inaccurate._ His turning had just been what had exposed at last the sweltering mass underneath the immediacy of his internal awareness. Right then, he didn't feel too shaken by that discovery. _Which only means it's too big to be assimilated in a single instance. I'll probably need time._

Regardless of how the elements now might be reassessing and changing, the mere feeling of every little piece of the puzzle falling into its place was giving him a sensation of calm he had never felt in the two week that came before that moment. A fragment of the peace he had been searching was already there, and not found anywhere external. As he might have expected, he had found it inside himself, when the right conditions were met. _I had better not be overly optimistic,_ he reminded himself. _Unlikely as it may be, they might still decide to kill me. As a start, I need to explain everything concisely and clearly._

' _Joor Dur Gron,_ ' he said, and it was the truth. He was bound by a mortal curse. 'This _Dur_ , this curse, awakened the darkness in me.' There wasn't the need for any other preamble. He hadn't, and couldn't have lied in saying those words. _Is it even possible to lie, while speaking Dovahzul?_ Another branch of knowledge where he might end up breaking the rules and crafting things that were never meant to be. Regardless, for the time being, he would get his answer. ' _Gahvon Daar Hi?_ Do you accept this?'

' _Geh, Dovahkiin._ ' Paarthurnax had just drawn the line. He would not die. And in spite of it, Azrael found himself largely unfazed by it and continued to listen to the Old One. ' _Drog Hin Dur, Meyz._ You have attained the strength to be the master of your own curse. _Mu Pah Dreh._ Every _Dovah_ has to control it. _Mindoraan Enook Aus._ '

With the corner of his eyes, Azrael caught a mass movement. More specifically, a series of small and slow movements that all together created a great deal of change. He turned his head to the side, looking at the Dragons on the side of the mountain. _It's like before,_ he thought, recognizing the same pattern and consequently checking for the same elements. The _Dov_ had bowed their heads, as they had done before, and they were all moving their mouths, just like before. This once it was easier to understand what they were saying, because he had just heard the phrase being spoken. ' _Mindoraan Enook Aus._ '

That wasn't such a hard phrase to comprehend fully. _You, left unsaid, understand the suffering of each and everyone of us, very brutally put._ As was often the case, another few meanings ran deep into those Words, but the concept they wished to convey was clearly that one. He glanced up at all the Dragons, still murmuring. ' _Mindoraan Enook Aus._ ' For that period of time, he had unknowingly been conscious of their own torment. If they felt half as bad as he did, it was no wonder they went rabid without a firm leader and easily sunk into melancholy. He was falling into that trap himself. _Even with this knowledge, very little will change. Laas Bo Nau. Life flows onward._

' _Mindoraan,_ ' he said. He understood truly.

Odahviing, by the foot of the peak, raised his wings from the ground slightly. Keeping hiself standing on his rear legs, he drew the claws closer to his sides and put them down again, assuming a higher stance. Unrolling his bent neck, he faced the skies and screamed.

' _Dovahkiin, Jun_!'

Dragonborn, King. Azrael shifted his eyes back on the _Dov_ on the side of the mountain, as they all brought their wings closer to their center of gravity and turned their eyes at the sky. The lighter abdomen scales of many of them shone in the sunlight.

' _Dovahkiin, Jun_!'

The Red Dragon spoke again. ' _Dovrahkren, Thuri_!'

Godsplitter, Overlord.

' _Dovrahkren, Thuri_!'

The Dragons brought their wings back to their previous position, letting their necks lower and their gazes return to the ground. Azrael looked at them, but they all responded with inexpressive glances. They had nothing more to say. Not one of them was angry or afraid. On the top, a Dragon with grey scales that vaguely reminded him of Mirmulnir waved his wings and lifted himself into the air, readying to leave the Throat of the World. _Stay strong, my brethren._ Soon, they would all go. Their judgment had been passed. _I will live and I will still be their king._

' _Vulom Yolos Paar_.' Azrael turned around, not only because it had been Paarthurnax who had spoken but because he felt strangely mesmerized by those three Words. The Old One had even lost his grim attitude and seemed more tranquil. ' _Mindol…_ Reflect on these Words, to that they may ease your pain. Let them be your _Thu'um._ '

 _Vulom,_ the very idea of darkness and loss of hope. Something so obscure that blocks away everything and completely annuls one's will to endure whatever he has to face. _Yolos,_ a more refined a sophisticated concept that the simpler _Yol,_ which meant Fire in its purest essence. _Yolos_ could be thought of as single flame, the light a candle. Azrael did not understand the logic immediately, but he could afford a luxury when talking to Paarthurnax. Trust. _Paar,_ lastly, was ambition unrelenting. The constant ambition that drove one to the tantalizing power one could acquire.

'Thank you.' There was no word in the _Dovahzul_ to express gratitude, and Paarthurnax was the only one among the Dragons who even understood the concept.

' _Hevno, Dovahkiin._ You carry a heavy burden. _Nuz Dahmaan,_ remember that no _Vul,_ no darkness can touch you. _Vokul Ko Hi._ Evil… Dwells inside you. The one who was crowed _Oblaan Do Lein,_ Ender of Worlds, is no more. _Alduin, Dilon._ Undone, by you. You were given his mantle. You were given his _Paar_.'

Azrael felt cold winds blowing through his mind, their cruel chill putting everything unwanted to rest. The rebellious thoughts were left without kindling, and yet there was a queer feelings haunting his quiet mind. ' _Ni Gein Aus,_ ' he said. There wasn't only one source of pain in his mind, apparently. ' _Hi Minrodaan Nii_?'

Paathurnax's gaze was unreadable, but a short moment went by before his answer. ' _Nid, Dovakiin. Krosis_.'

' _Dreh Ni Kos_.' It wasn't as if he had expected him to know. _It's high time I took matters into my own hands._

* * *

A/N: Writing this one was fun, in an auto-ironic and masochistic way. When I finished it the first time I went through it and wondered who had been the idiot who had written it in my stead. Second time the feeling was the same, but slightly less strong. The third time, I realized I had to re-write almost everything regarding the Dragons — which is quite a lot — because I had imagined them with four legs and not two, like they do in Skyrim. _Maybe,_ I've been fighting Darkeater Midir a bit too many times.

Regardless, after all the incoherences and multiple drafts, I think the chapter came out fine. Not great, but fine. It retained a decent amount of the dream-like quality I wanted to weave in it.

And, one last thing before I let you go: Since it took me more than a month to finish this one, and it might take even longer for the next one, would you prefer if I brought back the old "Previews" where I posted the beginning of the chapter before the whole one was finished? I doesn't change anything too greatly on my part either way.

So long, my friends.


	16. Chapter XV: The Hunt Begins

Chapter XV: _The Hunt Begins_

* * *

The Dragonborn was used to being the center of the attention. In certain occasions, it was inevitable that the gazes of those present would converge on him. Whether it was because he was speaking to them, or merely because they were trying to get a good look at him, it didn't matter. At times, certain people would not take their eyes off him because they were worried of what he might have done, if given a moment when no one was looking his way. There were many places where he had the reputation of vanishing, leaving naught but rumors and abstruse clues behind. Each time he strolled by a marketplace, people would look at him and salute him. That was why he avoided them as often as he could. The advantages and disadvantages of having that repute were debatable, but it was undeniable that as soon as he revealed himself, all the attention gravitated towards him. It was just the way it went.

And despite this, all the gazes that were turning towards him as he made his day down the set of stairs that went from the ante-chamber towards the main hall of Castle Volkihar was in equal parts amusing and unsettling. The stares of the vampires were fixed on him, and Azrael could almost swear that there were tiny hot pincers nipping on his flesh on every spot of him frame where their eyes were pointing. _As Aela once said, they threw me to the wolves and now I come back leading the pack,_ he thought as he walked down the last two steps of the set of stairs. And if his return alone wouldn't have been enough, there was also the fact that neither Salonia nor Stalf had come back.

Azrael didn't know what the court's plans for him were. Maybe, there had been plans for him that were already supposed to be concluded. There was also the possibility that his own freedom was the result of Lord Harkon's decision alone. The possibilities were many and there were numerous things to learn yet. The change in atmosphere that his arrival has caused could be interpreted in a variety of different ways. _If I knew,_ he reasoned, _how many members were informed of Vingalmo and Orthjolf's intentions of eliminating me and grabbing the Chalice for themselves, perhaps that would explain more._ And even then, it was possible that Harkon had merely used him as a personal tool, knowing that he was strong enough to carry out his will. Perhaps the confusion was due to the Lord's explanation to the court, detailing that they would have never seen him again. _His manipulation was masterful, but he didn't know me well enough. Or,_ he considered, but couldn't resolve on calling that other alternative certain, _he trusted what Serana told him too deeply. That woman is sharp in her own way, but she never got a grasp of me._

He strode on the left side of the hall, presuming that Garan Marethi would still be where he had found him last time. He still sensed the gazes of the vampires on his right examining him from the tip of the hood to the very end of the cloak. Deep down in his gut, there was a little flame burning. _The sweet taste of vengeance,_ he thought, recognizing the sensation, acknowledging it and lightly letting it burn. The strength of the feelings that vampirism caused weren't an issue any longer. Once understood, the stimulus released all of the attention it had taken.

He walked by the first door on the left and treaded past a court member, who kept staring fixedly at him but didn't even hint at greeting him. Azrael looked back at him, his gaze safe under the shadow of the hood, and tried to understand. _He's stiff on the shoulders,_ he noticed. The face was completely blank, and even the deformed nose ridge and the warped nostrils couldn't have hidden an underlying expression of curiosity of surprise. _This one's faking disinterest_ , he assumed. _He's treating me as if I don't matter, which probably means the opposite._ Aside from the shape of the nose, the cross-shaped lips were apparent and the cheekbones were gaunt, streaked by livid veins. _A quarter-breed. A relatively lesser member of this place, and…_ Serana's face appeared in front of him as he remember what she had said to him in front of the Castle gates. _Every quarter-breed would do anything to become a half-breed. That's aloofness born of envy, then._ He turned around towards the hall, averting his gaze from the vampire as a final series of thoughts passed though his mind. _I have something you crave and that you don't have. You also think that I received it unjustly. He probably has been around for millennia, and he still hasn't learned anything._

The hall looked different from where the feast they had interrupted was taking place. The tables were empty, although not clean. There were splatters on the wood, and all the residents of that place had surely lost their taste for wine a long time ago. _Besides, the flavor would be minimal with our reduced sense of taste._ Wine was also easier to scrub away than blood, which could remain in small stains for a long time. Those blots probably were the remnants of decades of feasting, not just last night's one. The goblets were full, and their number was disproportionate with the number of court members, even without considering that some had their own cup in hand. All of those chalices were old, the decorations worn off from centuries, if not eras, of being held by creatures with long nails.

While entering, when he still couldn't see some details, he had wondered briefly if the light had been changed in any way. When he had first seen the keep, along with Serana, his eyes had taken a moment to adjust to the dim light. The two rusty chandeliers hanging from the ceiling were the only source of light in that hall, but now that he returned there with the eyes of a vampire and a clear mind, he noticed that the illumination was just right. It wasn't too bright, and it wasn't too dark to strain the eyes and force them to compensate. _I wonder how old they are,_ he thought. _There's enough rust on them to assume they've been here since construction, but it's also fairly humid in here. I would be surprised if they hadn't oxidized. Age notwithstanding, it's strange that they can still hold their own weight._ They seemed on the point of falling any moment.

He turned left upon reaching the second opening on that side of the hall. In leaving the hall behind him, the fleeing sensation of diminishing tension reached him. _They did not know what to do, even._ As he swept his gaze around the small corridors and different ways that were presented to him and eyeing Garan on top of the stairs, he reasoned backwards about what his arrival would have seemed like to the vampires present. _Whatever happened, they probably weren't expecting me to come back._ Given that, the one person that they hated for almost killing them all had just walked in without any repercussion or greeting any of them. _On second thought, if my ghost had walked in instead of myself it might have arisen less interest._

He walked up the stairs, skimming just over the handrail. He had noticed upon entering for the first time that the stone used to build the interiors of the castle and what he had already seen of the exterior was crude, sometimes little more than cobblestone. It was of little significance on its own right, if not to consider the structure of the building by itself, but what was interesting was that it wasn't the same stone used to create the contraption where Serana had been sealed away. Even then, it didn't mean anything substantial, the places were a few days' distance from one another, but they weren't the work of the same person and they hadn't been built in the same style. It could be theorized that they had been built in different time periods, even.

 _Reflections to be kept for later,_ he thought, stepping on the elevated floor of the corridor leading to the chapel where he had woken up. 'Garan,' he called, turning his back towards the handrail and leaning on it. He shifted the blade of the longsword and the lower limb of the bow to make them hang down and not be between his own back and the rail, then calmly waited as the Dunmer turned around.

'Azrael,' he said slowly, weighting every letter and every sound of the word and brushing his reddish high ponytail. It was easy to read both his mild amusement and his genuine interest, even if the face showed little of both. They were Dark Elves. They understood one another.

 _Which is as much a temporary relief as it is a long term problem._ Azrael gave the brother in blood a terse nod as he turned towards him. _He might be the only one with a chance to guess my intentions, and then… We'll see where his loyalty lies. Unless I can control it beforehand._ With slow movements, he began undoing the knot that tied the Chalice to his belt. The strap of leather drawn on top of it was still emanating a light ethereal radiation. Meanwhile, he looked sideways at the older Dunmer, but there wasn't anything significant making its way past the blank and bored expression of that old schemer.

'I see you have returned. Lord Harkon will be pleased,' said Garan, his voice poised as always. He still didn't show any signs of surprise, but his eyebrows furrowed. 'I assume you met Stalf and Salonia. The Lord and I suspected they might follow you there.'

'Not of their own initiative, I gathered.'

The Dunmer flashed an ugly smile. 'You have gotten quickly acquainted to the politics of Lord Harkon's court. Yes indeed. They were pawns. Vingalmo and Orthjolf both long for our Lord's throne, but cannot make overt moves against him. Each sought to gain power by using his underling to kill you and keep the Chalice for himself. By ensuring the Chalice reaches out Lord, you have increased his power over them, and at the same time deprived them of their little pets. You've done Lord Harkon two great services.' The smile faded entirely, and he leaned in more closely. Some advice from a brother in blood,' he added. 'Take what you've learned to heart, and be careful who you trust.'

Azrael kept his lips from moving. Even the nearly imperceptible grin that would warp his darkened lips could have been spied by the enhanced sight of the old vampire. _A lesson on suspicion._ _I wonder if it is because of the age disparity or merely the little time he has known me for._ And of all the things he could have done before saying that, he seemed to have thrown caution to the wind. He had told him that Vingalmo and Orthjolf wanted the Chalice for themselves, whereas he had assumed they would have just been the ones to return it. They wanted power, they didn't want Harkon's favor. That explained why their underdogs had refused to bring the Chalice back together, but it was a suggestion of how strong that artifact was. _Generally, he seems to trust me a great deal. He could just have misinterpreted me, but he might also be manipulating me._ The person who advised against trust was probably the one to be trusted less than any other.

'I will remember,' Azrael answered, emotionlessly. He turned his gaze down to his side and looked at the Chalice, hidden in its leather cover, and extended it towards Garan. The smell of resin still came quite strongly from it, and it lingered on his armored fingers. 'Filled with the blood of the two traitors,' he explained. 'I supposed it would suffice.'

The old vampire took the Chalice with both hands, carefully wrapping his fingers around the stem and vertically cupping the covered rim with his other hand. 'It will be,' he said, his eyes briefly drawn to the object as he held it in his hands. He brushed the surface of the leather with his fingertips. 'Now,' he said, his gaze rising just enough to meet the Dragonborn's one, 'I think you should speak to Lord Harkon. He hasn't given me any further instructions.'

 _Of course he hasn't._ Azrael rose from the handrail, shrugged his shoulders to adjust the cloak and turned right. He knew the castle's Lord chamber, it must have been the room where he had disappeared after giving him instructions. He focused his gaze away from Garan, who was still holding the Chalice, and stepped forward. The cloak flapped at the sudden move, producing a weak gust and a soft rustle. _Of course he hasn't,_ he repeated again in his mind. _He was probably counting on not seeing me ever again. For that to be true, however, a variety of other things would need to be adjusted._ As he turned his back to the old vampire, another factor came to his consciousness. Sometimes he undervalued his own ability to keep things hidden. _Who, other than Harkon, could guess that I was a step away from insanity?_

Upon entering the next room, he halted his reasoning and checked his surroundings. The yellowish light of the candles illumined the several different ways one could take from there. If it could be called a room that intersection had five corridors converging on it, counting the one he was coming from. One came from the main hall, and the one who continued straight up the large set of stairs led to the chapel. The one in front of him led to a gallery that overlooked the main hall. On its left, a colossal, withered banner hung down the wall. Further on in the same direction, a small entryway signaled by two braziers, one on each side. _That's the one._ He remembered the pointed arch on the entrance. Assuming he wasn't intruding on any conversation, his new encounter with Harkon seemed seconds away.

In that time, he had some things to carefully ponder. He treated swiftly in the corridor's direction, his boots touching the floor silently. His eyes wondered on a sheaf of fresh lavender, left into an ancient vase filled with water. The flowers were withered and there wasn't any smell coming from them. _Everything in this place is old. The objects, the building. The people._ It felt strange to him, how such a long time had managed to pass without touching anything in there. That, however, was a line of thoughts that was inconsequential at the time. The upcoming encounter was a bigger issue.

 _I can't stand posing as someone I'm not. If I have to behave differently, that is._ He attacked the problem from all angles, resolute on that one simple thing. He wouldn't have pretended to be still insane. He didn't remember what exactly he had said and done the time before, which transitioned the option from merely unpleasant to objectively dangerous. _Harkon will see that I'm not the same. He seems to have that kind of intuition._ Something sparked right then. _Maybe…_ Perhaps it wasn't possible to keep on the act, but reversing it would have been extremely good. It would either gain Harkon's respect, or make him believe he had embraced his vampiric nature. In the latter case, making him believe he had become dependent on him. Thus making him believe he had gained a mindless underling. _The first seems more promising, however. He would not share any kind of information with me if the second one came to be true._ As per usual, knowledge was what he needed if the next order of the scheme had to be actualized.

He walked up the few steps leading to the Lord's room. There was no door, and before crossing the threshold he eyes a long dining table. A wooden one, the sides cut with the same technique as the ones in the hall. A narrow white tablecloth covered the center and extended further than its length, and dangled down both sides. Above, a low handrail was visible. The high contract with the lit candles illuming it from behind made it appear completely black. The wall on the immediate right was covered by another banner, this one not as tattered as the other ones. The heraldry, however, was too damaged all the same to guess what it represented.

As he entered, his view of the room became total. Although, in contract with what he had envisioned, it was rather barren. The section corresponding with the handrail was only filled with a large set of stairs with low steps. The size was so disproportionate that it was clearly meant to be either symbolic or just for atmosphere's sake. The other thing were a pair of chairs, a simple one alongside a jacked-up seat, of precious inlaid wood. They both were placed in front of a kindled and lit fireplace. The rest of the room was empty, expect from a drawer on the right side that he hadn't seen from the corridor.

 _And here he sits…_ Lord Harkon's eyes had immediately picked up on him entering, and had quickly shifted towards the entrance. The Volkihar's blood patron sat on the more precious of the two chairs, his chin resting on his intertwined hands, which in turn leaned on his knees. His eyes were bloodshot, and Azrael felt them seizing him up carefully. _He probably already understood I'm more stable than before, just by looking at how I stand and walk._ Despite the eyes, he couldn't help but notice once again how unassuming he looked. He could have passed for a mortal, if he wanted. The mere fact that for all those years he had kept his distance from the mortal world despite everything was quite telling of his character.

'Lord Harkon,' Azrael said. If he wanted to steer the interaction the way he wanted, he had to start from the beginning.

The pureblood remained silent. His gaze remained fixed on one spot, which were the precise one where Azrael's eyes were. _He can see the light, but I doubt he can understand anything._ The seconds went by mutely, without a single one of the two shifting or averting their gaze.The eyes of a vampire are dry and after a few days after the transformation the eyelids stop closing and reopening to water the eyeball. That makes a vampire's gaze particularly intense. Azrael had noticed that his own eyelids had stopped moving only on the way back from the Throat of the World. A good five days had gone by since then.

The gazes of both remained still, steadily. The crackling sound of the fire came from beside the man, and its flames cast strange shadows on his face. He hadn't changed since last time. The mustache and then beard growing on the chin were of the exact same length as two weeks before. He donned the same clothing as he did when he had received the Dragonborn and Serana, a lightweight armor. He had already taken note of the striking resemblance with the one worn by the Altmer he had killed at the beginning of his investigation.

'My daughter's savior,' Lord Harkon said, ending what Azrael could only describe as a subtle confrontation. 'Safe and sound.' His head turned around and gaze went back to the fire. His shoulders lowered, and his back bent even more. 'Given that you're here,' he said, 'I assume you brought the Chalice back with you.'

Azrael nodded his head once, slowly. 'That I have.'

'Good.'

The echo of the words resounded twice in the small room before disappearing. Once gone, the crackling of the fire substituted it. The sound was sporadic. The fire was burning well, albeit not having much more fuel to it. Two logs were stacked inside, leaning on each other and burning from their lower end. The smoke rose to a point where it was impossible to see where it went, but there must have been a cylinder bringing it to the roof. That fireplace itself was the remnant of a time long passed, when the cold air inside of the castle was a good enough reason for its inhabitants to light fires. Now, they were only for show or, as it seemed the case for Harkon, merely habit.

Azrael had eyed the dinner table beside him. The silverware was painstakingly laid out on the table, that had three chairs around it and three plates in front of each. _Two parents and an only child. The sum is obvious._ There was a thin layer of dust on the tablecloth and the forks and knives, but that wasn't as indicative as it would be at first glance. _Dust forms mainly as the human skin shreds. I can't imagine the outer tissues of a vampire behaving in the same way._ That considered, there was no exact way to guess how long that setup had been there. _And four thousand years isn't an option to roll out lightly._

Harkon pointed at the chair next to him with a wide gesture, recapturing his attention. 'Sit down,' he said, still looking in the coils of the fire.

Azrael stepped forward and lowered, holding the lower limb of the bow and the blade of the sword exactly as he had done before to keep them from causing problems. He had not been asked to lay down his weapons and he had no intention of disarming himself in that situation, so he did the best he could. He also let the cloak drop on the ground, and then sat comfortably in the seat. It might have been simple, but it was rather large and the armrests were to his liking. He laid his forearms on them, cracked his neck, and moved his head in Harkon's direction.

The Lord of the castle raised his eyes ever so slightly. His long fingernails were ticking against one another. 'I underestimated you.'

'Is that so?' There was no curiosity in the Dragonborn's voice, so it didn't sound like a question, but there was neither scorn to make it sound like mockery. There was simply no emotion in his voice.

'Yes,' Harkon replied, calmly. 'When you woke up from your slumber, I assumed you would have been of no more use to me. You seemed, and in fact I think you were, insane.' He paused briefly, leaving that last word hanging in the air. 'I thought sending you to recover the Chalice would have been the last thing you would have ever done. I didn't even think of telling you that. You didn't seem in the conditions to fully understand whatever I might have told you. But tell me, how did your quest in search of the Chalice go?'

'Garan Marethi was meticulous in his description. I had as little trouble in finding the den as in getting through its inhabitants. I also had to dispatch of the two who were hunting me down there and then, but I have been told that the encounter it had been anticipated.'

'Salonia and Stalf were both good fighters.'

'Not good enough. They would be here in my stead, otherwise.'

Lord Harkon didn't reply right away. His gaze still wandered the flames, but whether it was actually looking at the flames or was lost in his own thoughts, that could not be told clearly. His fingers had stopped tickling together, and now he sat completely still. Azrael moved his left hand on the side of the armrest and flexed the palm once, not shifting his gaze from the man's face and waiting patiently. He brought the hand back on the armrest.

'You may not realize,' the man said, 'but in recovering the Chalice you have done me a great favor. Furthermore, you have proven yourself a strong and indomitable ally. Because I can consider you one. Or do you still intent on slaughtering us all?'

The gauntlet's metal fingers grasped the armrest once again. 'I have yet to understand your angle on the matters at hand, Lord Harkon.'

The man sniggered grimly. The teeth blinked dimly, and the lines that were drawn revealed the unnatural thinness of the skin. Aside from that, he showed little else. His tone was even, as was the one of most court members, and the unknown accent in the voice made it difficult to understand. It wasn't quite the same as Serana's, which suggested a small evolution in the language even among that small group. The two things combined made it difficult to understand anything that he didn't want to communicate. 'My angle,' he said, 'is really rather simple, and I trust you will understand it by the end of this conversation. Which I hope to be very fruitful. All men can prove their loyalty, but not many can prove their strength. You have done both, even when I suspected you might not have been able to demonstrate either. My intention is to make up for that, and reveal everything that concerns you right now, man to man.'

'I'm listening.'

The blood patron's head moved, and his eyes shifted on the place where Azrael's ones were. The man's words, as he breathed out the necessary air to speak, carried the scent of blood. Not the maddening, strong scent of fresh blood, but the natural smell of the life lymph of any common mortal. He had fed recently, as suggested by the suppleness of the face.

'We need to go back to before your rebirth,' the Lord said, 'when I withheld my trust because we were still on opposite sides. When I told you that I was grateful for my daughter's safe return, I told the truth. But I did not tell you everything.'

'I never imagined you had.'

'Good. Strong instincts and a cunning mind will serve as well as blade, spell of claw. It is for that reason that we need to start from the beginning. As you will know by now, vampires are immensely powerful, but we too have too limits. Our great enemy is the Sun, and until recently it's an enemy we've had no way to fight. For millennia I have searched for an answer to this problem, and at last, I have found it. There is a prophecy written by a Moth Priest, those Scholars who read the Elder Scrolls. The foretelling tells of a time in which vampires will gain power over the Sun, and will no longer fear its tyranny. I believe the secret to unraveling that prophecy is written in Serana's Elder Scroll. Shortly, the court will assemble and a new task will be given to them. And now, that includes you.'

Azrael tucked away everything he could, to be dissected later. There was too much precious information to be gathered, but that was not the time. 'May I ask something else?'

Harkon gave a nod. 'You are worthy of trust, so yes. Ask me what you will.'

'Judging by my own calculations, a very long time has gone by since Serana and her mother left the castle.'

'My wife betrayed me and brought Serana with her,' he said. His gaze became more inflamed for a short moment, and the short phrase felt like a correction. 'But yes, they disappeared long ago. I commanded every vampire in the court to look for them, but after centuries of searching without success, I lost hope. In my heart, I know that it was my wife, who took my beloved daughter away from me. If I ever see her again, she will pay most dearly for that betrayal.'

'You assume Valerica fled, then.'

Harkon's head turned abruptly to the side. Azrael felt his forearm stiffing and pressing down, the fingers spanning straight and flexing. His hand wandered over the grip of the dagger for a moment, but aside from that sudden movement the man didn't seem on the point of attacking him physically. 'Where did hear her name?' he asked.

Azrael withdrew his hand. 'From Serana. She didn't directly tell me, but it seemed obvious once I pieced together what I knew. You confirmed my suspicion.'

'You're clever,' muttered Harkon. 'Much more so than you're strong, probably. Yes, I think my wife fled. We didn't part on good terms. She has been gone for so long now, and I can only assume she has left this world, one way or another. For a long time, I supposed she had brought Serana with her, and that I had to find another way to bring the prophecy to fruition. Thankfully, she was less clever than I first thought.'

'Why do you think she left Serana behind?'

Azrael was sensing a strange sort of weight pressing on his shoulders and forcing him to lower his head, almost as if the air itself was getting heavier and heavier as time passed. It was nothing physical, that he had understood very early, but the overall tone of the conversation. Even through small, isolated and seemingly inconsequential details, he could guess that the memories were reigniting a resentment that had been buried deep within the man for a long time. That anger had taken root in him, probably giving him the strength to carry on for millennia. _I doubt he could even try to vent it. It's just part of him by now._

'Valerica wasn't stupid,' Harkon replied. 'I think she was planning something different for her, but something she didn't foresee stopped her.' Weaving that semblance of praise for that woman seemed to be costing him a lot of effort. His fingers had stopped drumming against each other and his hands were intertwined, rigidly. 'Deep inside, I know that whatever managed to stop her is something I, too, should be wary of. I don't think what happened is how she envisioned it would. At least I have the satisfaction of having thwarted her schemes.' As he spoke, he seemed to be thinking about something. His voices waned as he reached the end of each word and each sentence. 'You should be the one telling me, in truth,' he continued. 'You were the first person Serana saw as she woke up. Was she surprised to see someone?'

'She was vastly uninformed. There's only one thing that could concern you. I had heard some vampires speak your name, and when I asked her who you were, she asked back if they had mentioned anyone name Valerica. Knowing how careful she is in speaking, I only imagined she knew about the conflict between the two of you but wasn't sure what would have happened.'

'Which might mean my wife left her with some unclear news, yes…' murmured Harkon. 'And I'm glad you caught on to my daughter's crafty habits. She's good at playing people around with words, all the while retaining such an innocent appearance you would never doubt her.'

'You speak of it almost as if you've been played around yourself.'

The man shifted his gaze back to the crackling fire. 'At times, I really fail to understand her. Again and again I've tried to steer her the right way, explain what she's expected to do. Yet for every time she obeys, there's another when she resists. She never opposed me, she simply doesn't comply. When she does that, I flow into a rage and find it hard to control myself.'

Azrael felt his lips pressing against one another, the scars of dryness of the upper lip grazing the lower one. 'Daughters are always a challenge,' he said. 'Their ways of thinking, even if similar to the parent's, are marked by quaint feelings. Sometimes tainted by them.'

Something hard seemed to melt in his throat. His attention had been focused outward for so long that now it was almost strange to be brought back to his own sensations. The sense of lightness wasn't new, but the mere presence of the thought had obscured that feeling for a while now. _That's a perspective worth using. I always viewed this from Serana's eyes, but the opposite can be made._ In spite of her age and experience, Serana was still very much a daughter. That, however, as interesting as it might had been, had to be analyzed in full detail later. Nevertheless, recollecting and ignoring that thought required more effort than usual.

The trembling light revealed Harkon's features sparsely, never all together. His expression never seemed to change considerably, but a sum of singular elements suggested a trace of curiosity. His eyebrows were slightly furrowed and his lips were tight, probably an attempt to control the fact that they were naturally parting. He looked rather pensive once again. _Just as I have changed my viewpoint on him, he's probably doing the same with me._

'My instinct tells me you're speaking from experience,' he said, weighting every word. 'That of a sibling?'

'No,' Azrael said, taking note of the fact that he hadn't been as perceptive as he had thought. 'That of a father.'

Silence fell again between them, and once more only the sparking of the flames in the fireplace was there to fill the void. The light cast on the table behind, on the chairs and on the columns moved periodically, when the wind sucked more air out of the cylinder connecting the heart's ceiling to the rooftop, or so Azrael found plausible. The waves of heat that reached them were waning and barely warm, and they carried the scent of ashes, contrasting the smell of blood.

Lord Harkon straightened his back, laying fully on the high backrest of his seat and crossed his hands on his lap. 'I never would have imagined it. You seem to be fairly used to living alone. I had assumed you had lived your whole life in seclusion.'

'True, but only to an extent.'

The man's head bent subtly. 'What was she like?'

The flow of memories was too massive to allow either glee or sorrow to come with them. The images, some blurred and some sharper than they could have ever been, coursed in disorder, sometimes overlapping one another. 'If you consider Serana a challenge,' he said after a moment, 'then you'd not have managed her. She was smart and inquiring, and her mind was cunning. But as much as she was those things, she was argumentative and impatient. She was impossible to control.'

'For any particular reasons?'

'Has Serana ever told you what you represent in her eyes?'

'No. I would have liked, but she never did. I understand why she didn't in her adult years. Even I can understand how strange it might have been for her to live with us for such a long time. After all, my own father died when I was but a boy, whereas she lived for more than half a century with us. Again, that I can understand, but not even when she was younger she ever told me anything. What about yours? Did she ever tell you?'

'On her fifteenth summer. She had angered a group of priests in the city, and I decided it was high time she stopped. I asked her to cease, and she answered that she wasn't rebelling me, but trying to prove me wrong. She grew with me, alone, for her first few years. She had acquired my view of the world, and once she had grown up she had tried to question my perspective. It was probably too grim for a child. She concluded that she had still not found a way to oppose me. She was briskly pushing my vision to its limits, making her behavior seem extreme and brazen. That was the reason why she was such a maverick. I started seeing something invaluable in her, and I voiced my thought that perhaps I should have taken better care of her. It was then that she told me, and resisted my opinion fiercely, claiming I was the best father she could have ever had.'

'What happened to her?'

The fingers of the gauntlet closed slightly, stopping at the right moment not to scratch on one another. 'A topic for another time. Should I tell the court to assemble?'

Azrael noticed Lord Harkon's head bending slightly to the side, while his eyebrows drew imperceptibly closer to one another. There wasn't the smallest trace of a twist on his lips and the corner of his eyes were still as if made of stone, the thin skin relaxed. Of what the Dunmer could see, not one of the signs he displayed could commonly be associated with scorn or contempt. Rather, he seemed to be quite surprised, and somewhat curious.

That conclusion was highly probable. The conversation which Azrael had just ended had gone through several phases, and a considerable amount of contradictions on his side. _If they made him confused, good._ They could have also made him suspicious, but then again, there was no trace of it. As all the members of the court he had encountered thus far, the Lord was remarkably good at concealing his facial expression. All mentions of display of emotion, such as his own admission that Serana brought him close to losing control, had to be put in perspective. That aligned well with the shock that Serana had described to him when citing her father's moments of rage. Her mildness and charming attitude also needed to be considered in its rightful place, because in that place of poised individuals, one of the few who can flash a smile is sure to attract more attention. _I think I'll fit right in. I'll bend the rules just enough to outdo them at their own game._

Meanwhile, Lord Harkon seemingly had pulled every thought together and his face was once again dignified and nearly blank. 'Yes,' he said, 'tell Garan to gather our kin.' He put his hands on the armrests and straightened his back, gazing intently at the void hiding the Dragonborn's face. 'I will not address you directly during my discourse, but remember that I want you in the frontline on this. You're undoubtedly the one who knows the outside world better than anyone here. My daughter also claims you have useful connections in this land.'

'Correct.' Azrael brought his weight forward and rose to his feet, once again shrugging his shoulders to make both the cloak and the weapons attached to the hangers fall in their place. 'I'll listen carefully,' he added, with a slow and terse nod of his head.

Lord Harkon replied with a nod himself before turning his head to the fading flames in the fireplace. The logs were crumbling to cinders and the fast-fading flames were sprouting from the layer of embers that emerged from the ashes. The Dragonborn brought a hand to his side, grasped the rim of the cloak to keep it from blowing a gust on the fire as he moved, and then turned around. The last thing he took note of was how the Lord was touching softly the three rings he kept on his middle finger. They were grey and crafted to resembled a sequence of small scabs, and each one was adorned with a bone claw. Of a bird of prey, judging by the size. A hack or a small eagle.

Azrael crossed the threshold and treaded down the stairs, recollecting and putting together everything he had gathered during that conversation. There was one thing he was musing on most of all, and that was the moment in which he had opened up to him about Layla. _That wasn't like me… Which doesn't mean it wasn't effective._ In the last few days, something about vampirism's state of activation had become more apparent. It was capable of very quick thinking, that wasn't any of the automated reflexes that made him such a dangerous fighter but also wasn't his longer-term, analytical thinking. It was something new, a part of himself brought to the surface thanks to the Blood. It was the first time he gave it free reign, and all seemed to have gone well. _The effectiveness will be measure in the long term, however_ _._

As he constructed the more complex things actively, his mind was linking all the information in the background. He had began to understand the social climate, the habits and the links inside the court a little bit better. He could now link what Serana had said with information gathered from sources that had a perception ever so closer to his, and that in turn had allowed him to piece together a filer to reinterpret everything Serana had said during the journey. Which, counting the things she had directly said and those she had implied, were a vast amount. That small lapse in the knowledge surrounding her family, which was her mother, had been filled with enough elements to make any assumptions sufficiently reliable to be the base for further speculation.

He walked by the crossing of corridors and returned to where he had left Garan, presuming he would had still been there. As he did, he tried to temporarily get out of his mind. _I'll have time to think about this on the way, wherever I'm headed next._ Still, once thing about all of that was still profoundly unclear. Serana had always refused to confirm his presumption that there was something about her, her as a person, which was useful to Harkon. The Lord himself, a few minutes before, had clarified that the thing he most cared about was the Scroll, but his daughter's fearful and obstinate silence meant more than his words. _But does he not know something which she does, or did he hide it from me?_ Both were possible. Indeed, he had admitted his wife was a astute woman, but likewise, he was not one to be trusted.

As he turned into the elevated corridor, he saw Garan. As predicted, he had returned there. Returned as if the Chalice was no longer there, so he must had put it in place and gone back to his place. He was leaning on the handrail, forearms extended forward, his fingers drumming on the back of his other hand.

'Garan.'

The old Mer turned his head around, giving a nod. 'You have spoken with the Lord, I presume. What did he tell you?'

'Gather the court members. The Lord wishes to speak to us.' The one thing he could recall from one time he had spoken to Garan before being send to fill the Chalice, was that he had admonished him sharply for calling Harkon with his name alone. Although the instinct of only saying the name again emerged, he quickly changed his words. He didn't desire friction, not right then and not with that one person.

'I see,' commented the old Dunmer, sounding pleased. Whether he had allowed it to emerge or had feigned it to cover for his surprise, that was what could be heard in his tone. 'Great things are afoot, indeed. The court will assemble.' He spread his right arm towards the stair beside him, his gaze hardening somewhat. 'Go. You should be the first to be there.'

The note of compulsion in his voice was the only thing that matched the tougher look. Azrael had nothing to gain from openly opposing him, and so he remained silent and strode behind him, towards the set of stairs, descending them two steps at a time. He felt the piercing stare of the older Mer on his back or a brief moment. _Was that meant to test me, or was that merely a request to be left alone? In the first case he doesn't trust me individually, in the second he doesn't trust what Harkon and I are up to. But is Harkon really the person to have a reputation for making such unstable alliances?_

As he paced down the final few steps he considered how many times the concept of trust, if not the word itself, came up in his reasoning and in the few conversations he'd had up to that point. Specifically, the lack of it was blatant in that place. Of course, wherever power was near, everyone around would try to get his or her hands on it. The problem with that place was that it had been drawn to extremes, if only because of the time span. _Grik Los Lein_ , he thought. _Such is the world. You then either turn into a manipulator, like everyone inside these walls, or a misanthrope, like me._ He stepped onwards, avoiding the corner and walking around it.

The extra distance allowed him to halt sharply as he came face to face with someone. He locked every muscle up tight and stopped. Taking the wide path around corners was so automatic he did it even in places and situations where there wasn't the need to. It was one of the smallest and more lethal mistake in any infiltration missions, but is often quite useless when being seen isn't an issue. Although in that particular case, it had stopped him from colliding against the person who was walking past the corner as well. _Let's see,_ he thought, shifting his gaze to see who had been the reckless or distracted person who had almost smashed into him. _It's either some thrall with too little blood in his vessels or…_ His thoughts stopped as if cut away with a sharp knife. _No, I was dreadfully incorrect._

Serana had stepped back with her right foot and was passing a hand through her black hair to remove the locks that had fallen on her eyes. Her head was down as she tried to bring them away from her face. Whether she had her eyes closed or not, she clearly didn't see anything of the person that she had bumped into.

That brief moment in which she did that gave him all he needed. His eyes ran through every tiny detail in the little time they had. Firstly, her hair were shorter. The reason why they had fallen all over her face was that now they could hardly fall down to the shoulder blades. The color and the obsessive thought still bouncing around in his mind made him remember that when Layla cut her hair, something significant had happened. Not that it was that much a leap of logic to assume that everything that had gone down was significant for Serana, but it was further confirmation. Secondly, she wore a long and elegant garb, not overly different from the red tunic her father had worn on the day of his awakening. The fabric was the same, with those sections that resembled scales. It had its great differences from Harkon's one, which was hardly surprising. Tunics made for the poor were often similar in the models, but those were dresses made for royalty. Each one was tailored to perfection, and there was no denying that that one fit her flawlessly.

'Pardon me,' Serana said, bringing her hands away from her face but without raising her head. 'I was just—' She stopped, and the way her whole head moved made it rather clear she had seen something particular. Her eyes darted upwards, in an irregular series of motions that were quick enough to be easily mistaken for one movement. First, her gaze stopped at the height of her own waist, then slightly to the side at roughly the level of her arms, and then it moved vertically to gaze above her own head.

Azrael quickly managed to put together what exactly she had looked at. Firstly, she must had recognized his boots. There was nothing of the like around the castle, even more so than outside of it. The second bounce of her gaze had doubtlessly looked for the tip of the longsword and the bow emerging from behind his cloak. The other movement was harder to guess, but it had seemed like she had looked at his gauntlets. There wasn't any reasonable explanation to justify it, beside some disparate theories that he didn't even began to consider. Lastly, and that was where her eyes were still firmly directed, was his hooded face. She was still gazing intensely. Her face, unlike the one of the other court members, definitely showed numerous hints of surprise, and many other emotions.

'Azrael…' she whispered under her breath. Small signs in her expression began to rapidly change, in ways that he couldn't piece together. But overall, she seemed conflicted. Very much so. 'You're back,' she continued, still whispering softly. Following her words, flashes of violent anger marked her traits, but not a single element of that feeling was its way into her tone. 'You're alive.'

'It greatly depends on the definition.'

This once, a very familiar chain of expression marked her face. First a moment of tension, probably of slight embarrassment. The thin skin on her cheekbones tensed and her small jaws clenched, but immediately after the muscles loosened and the corner of her eyes were marked by small wrinkles. _Why do I even remember that?_ Azrael wondered, a feeling of frustration emerging along with that. _That's the most senseless piece of information about her to remember. I don't even remember all of Elisif's expressions, and I do hers._ Regardless of his unwillingness to remember, he had remembered well. After that, a wary smile made its way on her lips. However, and he was almost ignoring it as given, there was a strong tension in her body.

'I mean…' she said, hesitating briefly afterwards. 'You're here and you can speak, and…' Her voice trailed off, but it was quite clear what she was trying to say. How she would have said it was irrelevant by that point, but the concept had gone through. It wasn't that uncommon while they spoke to one another. Her phrases were linear enough for him to guess quite precisely what she would say next. She regained her composure, although now there was something different in her smile. 'I'm happy to see you here.'

 _She skipped one part, but I'm not going to play at pretending it didn't happen. Actually, she's pretending two things never happened. However…_ There was a huge hole now in all his presumptions. He had predicted her having, or acting like she had, forgiven him. Not even in his most detailed attempts to imagine what she would say to him in a case like the one at hand. _And that smile…_ No forced twist, the angles were perfectly natural. _Either she's become even more proficient at feigning her smirks, or she's telling the truth._ A possibility that none of his options incorporated.

'Are you?' He listened as his interior perplexity emerged in a sarcastic note on the outside, even despite the impassive tone. 'Last time we saw each other I smashed you into a wall. Unless that incident made you amnesiac, allow me to have my share of doubts.'

'What about me?' she replied promptly. She had been a fraction of a second away from talking over him. It was debatable whether she had listened to his last words. 'I too did something bad to you.'

Azrael released the tension that had gathered at the height of his chin, and allowed his lips to close tightly. _What in Oblivion is going on here?_ He had his answer though. While before he had interpreted Serana's strange actions as in incoherence in the small problem regarding the two of them alone, it was now rather clear that the way she was acting was being influenced by a context much larger than the two of them alone. _It's not a matter of solving the problem here. It's a matter of defining a new one._ Still, he emphasized with Harkon more than he could with her. _She truly does act in ways that are incomprehensible to people such as Harkon and me._ And now that he had her under his own eyes, he understood one thing. _It was different with Layla. I understood her, I just couldn't control her._ He too was a different person back then, which didn't change the present situation. _Understanding and failing to control is not the case with our princess here. She can't be understood from the start._

The matter was more complex than he had first thought, and complexity mean more time spent. 'Your father will give the court instructions, soon,' he said slowly, coldly, complementarily matching the rashness and the heat of her tone. 'Go to the back of the hall,' he continued, pointing at it with a slight movement of his head. 'We'll finish there.'

Her hands, which she had stiffened and raised while talking, slowly fell down by her sides again. She loosened, losing the tension that had gotten a grip of her as she spoke. Her face also showed signs of surprise, and even slight confusion. _It would be safe to assume that she didn't respond me in any way. She merely reacted to what I said,_ he thought, making a distinction that had been vital many times before that one. A distinction that everyone accusing him of being completely uncaring clearly didn't make. That time around, it helped explain her loss of tightness quite well. A reactions sustains itself continuously, until it is no longer required. In stopping their talk in its middle, he had given her time to think clearly. _Which is something she seems to have trouble with._ It wasn't the first time that suspicion struck his mind.

Serana wordlessly turned around, grasping the side left side of the dress to keep it from flapping unnecessarily. She was agitated, but still Azrael could not see any trace of hostility towards him. He could feel his own curiosity getting more and more voracious with every moment of silence, and with that also the passive thoughts of how she could be playing him. Quietly, he followed her right in toe, staying closer to the wall, the perfect occasion to steal a second, cautionary glance. Her movement with the dress had raised its lower portion just enough to expose the boots. _It might be irrelevant, but…_ Solid leather, excellent craftsmanship. A rather thin layer in that case, striped with red decorations. No symbols. _Irrelevant, yes, as all of her clothing is,_ he thought, letting his gaze rise again, _which doesn't mean she doesn't look stunning._

The internal response to that thought was hazy. He almost halted in place, such was the attention that had suddenly been requested to solve the problem up in his mind. _Where did that come from?_ Through a link that was purely intuitive, he noticed that the unknown feelings of longing that had tormented him in the last few days had completely disappeared. The feeling that even Paarthurnax hadn't been able to understand was gone, just like that. In its stead, there was a fiery sort of euphoria. It was a confused turbulence, something that pushed in the almost opposite direction of all his other priorities. _What in Oblivion is happening to me?_ Again, he tried to recall something of the like from the past, but there was nothing. _Vulom Yolos Paar_. Even those Words didn't help. It was something else entirely.

He shifted his gaze to the side, trying to give him mind something else to keep itself stimulated, lest he drown in those speculation and endless scrutiny of his own sensations. _And good thing I did…_ he thought, locating at least five pairs of eyes looking their way. While he was busy staying in his own head, Serana had lead him across the entire side of the room and they were almost at the end, just past the entrance to the laboratory of Feran Sadri, the other Dunmer living in that place. _I guess staring isn't considered impolite here. Or perhaps it's fine to stare at me, since I'm still the mysterious newcomer. Their princess is another thing entirely, though they could pretend to be worried for her._

He didn't give any of them any of his attention. Serana, just as she reached the part of the room overlooked by the elevated sections from which the stairs came down, turned around again. She grasped again the side of her dress and then planted her feet firmly on the ground. _If I…_ He dropped that hypothesis. He was somewhat interested of whether she would stand her ground or not if he had stepped closer, but that was neither the time nor the place. He slowed to a halt, a safe distance away, but close enough so that their voices couldn't be heard in the low buzz that always filled that hall.

'So,' he said, a faint sarcasm still ringing in his voice, 'you were saying I wasn't the only one doing bad things.'

'Yes,' she replied, her body stiffing once again almost to the same that it had moments before. 'We both remember what I did, and I can understand you being angry because of that. I was just…' She hesitated, lowering her eyes. 'That was the only way I could have saved you.'

The sentence was left hanging in the air for a very brief moment, in which the buzz coming from the hall surpassed all noises. Azrael observed motionlessly. He never looked away from her face, alert to every sign, every movement and every possible incoherence with her words. 'You believe what you told me.'

Her eyes rose again, and they seemed feverish. 'Of course I do!'

'Truly? You did that to protect me? After I lied to you, manipulated you and made you guide me here, with the sole intent to murder everyone you had ever known, you think you were the one who did something wrong? I should not even be remarking that I still have my doubts.'

'You brought me safely home.'

'You were giving me access to my enemy's den. The bargain was in my favor, had you not interviene afterwards.'

'You didn't try to kill me once we arrived here.'

'Because it was still too early, among the most important reasons. Don't flatter yourself.' He raised his hand to the height of his waist and kept it there. Despite everything, he was faintly amused by the absurdity of the situation. _What's most ludicrous, is that she hasn't yet cited the sole thing I would have no argument against: I didn't judge her because of what she was._ When looked through the filter of common values, that attitude was one of his few redeeming qualities, and she had either not noticed it or keeping it for herself. 'You,' he remarked, 'acted to save yourself from my machinations, not vice versa.'

If there was one word that would sum up everything Serana was showing to him, it was conflict. Inner conflict. _But what are the warring parties?_ To know what truly underlay the struggle, the fight had to emerge. He was merely taking the side of that part of her which was trying to resist what she said and did, in accordance to her stronger interpretation. Maybe, in that way, he could draw out that clash. If she acknowledged that part of her own self as a mere projection of Azrael himself, then he could have peered into her interior reasoning. _Along the way,_ he reflected, _I have understood the minds of others in very acute ways. I wonder how._

'You did what you thought was best.' Serana's reply, which she had thought about for a while, snapped him away from his thinking. 'It didn't coincide with what I thought was best and neither with what was good or right to do, but you made your choice. I can respect that.'

His gaze drifted away completely from his thoughts and focused on her eyes. Those red globes, cut in half by the vertical pupil, that shimmered weakly in the dim light of the castle. Small blue lines marked them, signaling the places were the blood vessels once sprinkled the eyeballs. 'Which would make me a heroic and selfless martyr.'

'Well…' Her voice chocked on itself, as if her throat had suddenly contracted and kept the rest of the sentence from coming out of her mouth. Her faint smile slowly faded into sharper twists in her mouth. The corners stretched and the lips parted, pursing unnaturally. The fangs appeared from behind. 'By the Blood,' she muttered, baring all of her teeth, 'will you relent?'

'Not until one of us has been proven wrong.'

The woman's gaze seemed to sparkle alight, right before she darted her head to the side. Azrael followed it with a movement of his pupils, noticing that she was looking at the vampires observing them, but carefully avoided moving his head. Moments after, her head bolted right back to him. Her irises were indeed alight. He had never seen them like this before. The skin so stretched on the bones that it was almost exposing them, showing that just beneath appearances the Volkihar were monsters all the same. When their anger or their bloodlust came out, they didn't differ from the other vampires.

'You're always like this,' she groaned his way. 'I try to say something that could mend what has happened, and you prefer to break it. I offer you peace, and you reject it. You don't give anything in return other than more conflict.' Her right hand fingers waved two times, with the nails scratching her palm. 'I try to convince myself that nothing happened, and you bring it back. I do remember. I try to forget and you make it come back. What do I do with you?'

'Those memories…' the Dragonborn said, his tone distant and marked by a pensive note. He remembered her last words only in blurred images, such was the intensity of the intuition. 'They make you suffer, do they not?'

Serana's nostrils flared for a brief moment. 'You can't understand how glad I am that you noticed,' she said. Azrael wouldn't have even defined her tone as merely scornful. Venomous was probably the right word. 'I don't know what it is about you. You always get away with whatever you do. You almost murdered everyone in this keep and yet here you stand. If you want to truth, then listen. I think you're a heartless bastard. You comprehend people and things down to their rotten core, and then you use them for your own ends without any consideration for what they want. That's what an evil person does.'

'And it's a blood-raving fiend telling me this. Now I've really see it all.'

'Welcome among the fiends, by the way,' she muttered, lowering her vice still, but exposing her teeth even more. 'You'll fit right in with that scum. The only reason I even tried to reconcile us is because between you and my father, you're the lesser evil.'

Azrael let go of his waist with his right hand and brought both arms at the height of his chest. Ever so slowly, he tucked his left hand under his right bicep and the right forearm under the left one. Once his arms were crossed, he drummed with the metal fingers of his gauntlet on the vambraces. _Losing control is never good, when you're in a situation resembling this. Lucky her that no one seems to have heard her._ He focused on his facial muscles for a moment, but there wasn't even the hint of a sneer warping his lips. The deadpan expression that so often his muscles assumed in response to curiosity had had the better of it. _I suppose that it's a faithful reflection. As amusing as it was, that's a heavy statement._ He merely waited for the moment when she would realize her misstep herself. _Any moment now._

In truth, she had shown the first signs of discomfort right as she was saying that last phrase. Now, it was plain to see. The most visible things was her shutting and opening her eyes repeatedly, as if closing them every time she wanted to suppress a thought and widening them to restart the thinking. Her shoulders had dropped down, and her arms were dangling down without any attempt to keep them still. Her lips were irreversibly opened, as if she always was on the point of saying something and then eating it right back whatever she had thought of. Those patterns had been losing intensity and were waning.

When she raised her eyes again, the only thing left was a mask of regret. 'If you ever,' she said, her voice so soft it seemed on the point of faltering, 'ever tell my father that, just know that I'm finished.'

'I won't.' He paused for a moment. He had heard a slight commotion in the front of the hall, and it seemed that something was about to happen. Nevertheless, he turned back. Serana's eyes were filled with things he could not understand. 'You, and many others, limit your understanding by defining me as malicious. I'm pragmatic, even coldblooded at time, but nothing more. In our present situation, rationality invites to use information as a threat, not as an attack. A debtor is far more useful than a corpse, under the right circumstances. In turn, this means you have nothing to fear from me.' He caught a glimpse of Lord Harkon's frame occupying the balcony that overlooked the hall. He bent a little closer to her. 'We should probably listen to your father, now.'

That said, he brought his left foot perpendicular to the other end of the hall, where the castle's Lord was about to give his speech. Harkon was unarmed, in the same clothes as he had seen him minutes before. He was leaning on the handrail, and the light of the chandeliers that struck him was partially colored red by the hanging drapes that came down from the top of the loggia. Stealing a last glance towards Serana, Azrael noticed how thoughtful she was.

Pushed by the incomprehensible euphoria that had sizzled in him every since he had first noticed it, a simple question took shape in his mind. 'What's on your mind?'

Her gaze was vitreous as she looked back at him. 'I was thinking that maybe you have changed, after all.'

 _I should hope so,_ he thought, but he didn't voice it. For a moment, he had feared what she would have answered to his question. He had trusted a gut feeling, suggesting him that she had been calmed by his reasoning. Logically, it made little to no sense. What real conjecture could he made on how she could have received his words? Meanwhile, Lord Harkon was waiting for the court to go silent. He had his chin raised proudly, and looked like a very different person that the quieter, more humane version of himself than Azrael had spoken to.

The vampires were all gathering as close as they could to the balcony. There were some who had their place of honor from the way they had positioned themselves, and those who had fought hardly for their place near their ruler. The Dragonborn, not with a slight hint of irony flowing through his consciousness, noticed that the ones who had kept enough distance not to end up crammed in the crowed were the three Dunmer. Himself, with Serana by his side, Garan Marethi and Feran Sadri.

'Scions of the Night! Hear my words!'

His voice boomed in the chamber, probably augmented by the a favorable acoustics. The eyes of the man swept across the hall and all the vampires in it, but Azrael clearly felt it crossing his eyes. He had lingered for quite some time around him, some to look at him and, afterwards, at his daughter. _There has to be something deeper still to what she said,_ Azrael thought. Serana, in spite of everything, was ostentatiously standing by his side and held her father's gaze firmly. _The lesser evil. But does that make me a shield against her father?_

'The prophesized times,' Lord Harkon recommenced, 'is at last upon us. Soon we will claim dominion over the Sun itself, and forge a new realm of eternal darkness. Now that I have reclaimed one of my Elder Scrolls, we must find a Moth Priest to read it. I have spread false rumors about the discovery of an Elder Scroll in Skyrim to lure a Moth Priest here. Now it is time to see if those efforts have borne fruit. Go forth, and search the land for rumors of a Moth Priest within our borders. Look to the cities. Speak to innkeepers, carriage drivers, anyone who would meet a traveler. Go now, and carry out this task. This is my command!'

Once again, Azrael had to tuck away a large portion of information. He claimed to have spread false rumors, but why hadn't Karliah mentioned it? Secondly, had he really left the castle himself to do that work? Many more questions needed answers, and there were a dozen other hints that might have led somewhere fruitful. _Firstly, it would be interesting to think about the his intentions. For someone who called me insane, he doesn't look too stable himself._ One thing was important among all else, and that was that he knew where to start. He had better resources than innkeepers and carriage drivers.

'Princess,' he said, turning towards Serana. He had just remembered that he used to call her like that when they were traveling back to the castle. She looked back at him rather naturally, perhaps feeling safe in that small habit of theirs. 'Anything else before I'm off?'

'Yes, there is,' she replied. Her tone was alive, very different from how she had last spoken. 'Can I come with you?'

Azrael hissed faintly, motionlessly scanning her face and reflecting silently. 'I trust you know what you're getting yourself into. However, it's dreadfully clear that you have ulterior motives for coming. In all sincerity, it's the sole reason why I'm letting you.' He spotted her feature brightening even before me could finish. 'On one condition.' He waited for her face to return as serious as she managed, and continued only then. 'Do you remember when you bit me?'

'It will never—'

'Let's not finish that thought,' he interrupted, 'because it's the wrong one. I'll not mince words, so listen carefully. There's a side of you, that side that bows to whatever others ask of you, which I can hardly bare. More importantly, you can hardly stand it yourself. If you're going to come with me, I want the Serana who bit me. The one who states what she wants and, if it isn't given to her, grabs it. The one who isn't afraid to hurt others. The one who doesn't shy away from evil. Not her pathetic, deplorable and helpless twin. Do you understand?'

'Was that meant to hurt?'

'Think.' His voice touched its deepest notes, making the rasping part of his accent even more marked. 'What reason would I have?' he asked, speaking slowly. 'None. I stated my observation. A neutral, impartial fact. How you receive it doesn't concern me.' He gave her a moment, as he had noticed time and time again that she needed a moment to reassemble her thoughts. When her eyes became sharper again, he continued. 'Do you still want to follow me?'

'Yes.' Her tone was firm. 'You have a plan, I imagine.'

'Meet me outside the castle once you've grabbed everything you need. The less people figure out we're together, the better. Afterwards, we're bound for Dawnstar.'

* * *

A/N: For the ones who check back every once in a while for new chapters, from now on I should be able to publish a new one every two weeks. Three at most.

Thanks to everyone who favorited, followed and reviewed and read thus far. We're almost at the half-way point of this journey, and I'm cover content with how it's been going until now. In conclusion, thanks again to everyone.


	17. Chapter XVI: In Search of Prey

Chapter XVI: _In Search of Prey_

* * *

His thoughts were like the tide under the whim of the moons, constantly moving back and forth. There were moments when he finally intended to act, but then the other faction started whispering words in the back of his mind, convincing him otherwise. Once they had control, the previously broken side rose again and voiced its arguments, shifting the balance once more. It had been going on for way too long. _I'm retracing the same steps in my reasoning with every iteration. It needs to stop._ Nothing new was emerging from that inner debate, and the hope to make both sides content was far away, now. _It wasn't me who made that decision. It was a part of me taking his revenge._ That new element moved the thinking forward, onto a new problem.

His conflicting desires had never emerged so strongly as in the days after leaving the Sanctuary, two weeks before. His mind had remained clear in that span on time. Clear, but unstable. When he had taken that decision, it had been a solitary want. He, as in the person who was observing that inner conflict there and then, had not approved it. _But what to do? Accept that whim, or destroy it?_ Although in truth, he could not be destroyed. He could only be denied that small victory, but he would have come back. He was a rational one, and he could see that there was only one solution. _I will do it, and in time whoever it was who took that decision will lend me his strength._ He had attempted to approach the problem multiple times, and that time was the sole one when he had succeeded in understanding. Reasoning as if there were different people in his mind, discussing about which decisions to take, was something so far from the truth it could never have been directly applied. And yet, it had been his only way to understand the problem.

Nevertheless, now the decision had been made, and his mind was silent once again. He lowered his hood on his forehead with his right hand and brought the left to his side. The leather package laid there, unknotted from his belt but also untouched, on the sharp rocks. He grabbed it and then leaned his hand on his cuisse.

'Serana.'

The light of the rising Sun was casting its first shadows on the snow, and a few solitary rays pierced the clouds from time to time. The hollow faced the North, and the diffused light traced a horizontal line on its edge. She was sitting right there, on the rim. Her hands encircled her bent legs, and she had been swinging weakly back and forth, staring fixedly into the unending expanse of water that stretched out before of them. Now, hearing her name, she quickly turned her head, her usual blend of fear and attentiveness shaping every line of her face.

'Yes?' she asked, her eyes moving all across his the void hiding his face in search for his eyes. For a brief moment, her gaze lowered to the leather packet he was holding.

Azrael held it higher in the air for a moment to let her see it. 'Catch,' he said, flinging the parcel into the air. It drew a flat parable and would land slightly to her left. _It doesn't behave the same way a perfectly spherical object does does_ , he noted.

Serana sharply moved both her hands exactly where the object was and grabbed it firmly. She stole a brief glance at Azrael before doing anything, but as soon as she brought back her gaze she turned the package upside down and began to undo the knot. _Does she…? Yes._ He was unsure whether she would manage to loosen those thin strings with her gloves on, but the two pieces that emerged from in between her fingers dispelled his doubts. _I would have simply cut it. Perhaps bearing the mark of the Ender of Worlds influences even these small things,_ he thought, feeling his lips twisting into a sneer.

'What is it?' Serana said, perhaps more to herself than him. 'Silver… And malachite.' She was still fumbling with the string, but a side of the parcel must had come loose and opened its fold to reveal part of the circlet. Pulling the strings one last time and untying everything, she quickly grabbed the doubled layers and opened them. Her features changed into a blend, half of surprise and half of wonder. 'Did you…' she said, but trailed off, looking in more closely. 'Did you make this?'

'I sketched the design. I had a real jeweler work on it.'

She grabbed the circlet in her hands and raised it. _True to what I designed,_ Azrael observed. The silver mainframe provided a lighter and denser color in the center, while the translucid malachite was well arranged around the edges. The fact that the inner lining was also made of the same material made certain parts blurred, making it difficult to tell how thick it actually was. The final touch was the hexagonal emerald set in the front, right under the silver decorations that adorned the higher part.

'It's beautiful,' Serana said, running her fingers along it. She kept away from the parts made of silver, although the mere touch of it wouldn't do anything more than feel slightly chafing. 'It's for me, I guess.' Her gaze rose, knowing that the answer would come in the form of a silent nod, and so it happened. She shifted her eyes back down once that happened. 'I'm…' she paused. 'I'm thankful. Does it mean anything?'

'It does. And apology, you could call it.'

* * *

His gaze turned back on the horizon. 'We've had this conversation already.'

'And you left me with more questions than answers, so I'm trying again. How do you make decisions like that? What do you trust, if not those that came before you?'

'I trust my own head. At times, the one of people I know. Living people. The dead hold nothing for me. They have the superlative virtue of remaining silent, and that's good enough for me.'

A moment went past, and even after that she didn't reply. _She has grown bolder with her questions, but she still doesn't think before asking._ It had taken him only a few days after their departure from Dimhollow to piece together a general idea of what kinds of reasoning disarmed her. In her thinking, there were clear veins of ideas that were not hers, but systems that she had learned or inherited, and that she had never questioned. Upon realizing it, she always fell silent. However, she would also debate around the point, defending it until he had dismantled all of her beliefs. _It's quite amusing, in a way, but it's not challenging._

'Right, I understand,' she said. 'You don't like being told what to do, and if there's no one to argue with you prefer to stay away from their advice. But why this radically? Tradition is good, it's what remains of the ones who created the place where you grew and where you probably still live. It's something to live up to, that gives you purpose.'

'Someone else's purpose. True for someone else's life.' Sometimes, he suspected she had never actually applied those ideas. She just declared them true in theory. _Her father's purpose is to control the Sun, as far as I know. Her mother's, if my speculation is correct, was trying to stop him. She has followed in the footsteps of neither._ There was the possibility that she alluded to some older principles still, but that was momentarily out of the discussion. 'Plants,' he concluded, slowly, 'are given roots to stay where they sprouted. Men and Mer are given legs to walk away. That has to mean something.'

The regular bouncing beneath them was slowing progressively. Shadowmere shook her head as she decelerated, snorting faintly. Azrael, hearing no answer coming from Serana, bent forward and caressed the beast on the strong neck, moving the black hair away. Other animals became worried when they sensed the surface of the gauntlets, but the mare had not shown any sign of fear from the beginning. With time, she had learned to associate that cold touch with her master, and welcomed that touch, recognizing the Dragonborn without even seeing him directly. _You've behaved,_ he thought. Even when he was in the deepest states of his breakdown, she had always led him where he needed, safely. And when he had left for the Throat of the World, she had remained where she was supposed to. _This is loyalty,_ he mused, _not the things I've seen in that castle._

They were close to the Black Door. _Speaking of loyalty, I still wouldn't trust Serana with the location of our secret entrance._ It was very early in the morning, three or four hours after Midnight. Ideally, one of the Dark Siblings would have the piece of information he needed and they would have been on their way immediately after. If not, the same. He wouldn't sit idly by, waiting for them to gather more gossip. He had other sources and time was of the essence. Furthermore, he would rather not introduce Serana to the Family. _I've kept secrets for a long time,_ he realized. _I'm holding off my true purposes from her, and she is doing the same with me. And I'm undisturbed by it._ That notwithstanding, he had his doubts that Serana could guess the real extent of his intentions. True, he wanted to capture the Moth Priest. What she probably didn't know was that he aimed to be the first one to do so.

He tugged Shadowmere's hair gently. 'Get down,' he said, turning his head slightly in Serana's direction. He moved his hands over to her neck and positioned them both horizontally along the spine, drawing his right leg up and readying to jump off.

'Do we need to go inside there?' she asked from behind him. Her voice was muffled and came in between the sound of the waves creeping along the sand and then washing back during the undertow. Her tone was wary, but there was a note of enthusiasm in it.

 _She has not understood fully yet, has she?_ He pushed and collected his right leg, making it go past the mare's back and then slowly letting himself fall. Again, his vampiric strength made it so much easier than he remembered. His feet touched the ground lightly, without a sound. 'You're not coming,' he said, opening his hands and bringing them down by his side. 'You'll wait for me here.'

'But—'

'No,' he interrupted. He turned towards her, unhurriedly. 'It'll only be a moment,' he concluded, hearing his voice losing some of its harshness.

In the darkness, the thing he could see most clearly were her eyes. _She hasn't fed in a while,_ he noted, looking at the state of her irises. They were more bloodshot then normal, and the red veins that marked them seemed to move of their own will. A vampire's eyes look more and more alive as he or she starves. Beside those, his own gaze was focused and he felt his pupils sizzling, piercing the blackness of the starless night. She was trying to hide it, but there were signs of sadness in her features. Of humiliation, even. _It's not that I haven't tried to calm her,_ he mused, thinking back to all the times when he had seen that expression before. _I can't. I don't understand how._

He turned his back towards her, his gaze stopping for a moment on the corner of his field of view, catching a glimpse of the water creeping along the grey beach. He strode towards the Black Door, his mind exploding with questions. He didn't say a word. He didn't know which word to say. _I know that I'm risking,_ he thought. _I know she might feel misunderstood, but what am I to do?_ It was better not to say anything at all. _At the very least, it's what I think is better._ He had to make a choice, and he would lose something either way.

 _What is life's greatest illusion?_

His head shot upwards, but the voice of the Black Door was all too familiar to be mistaken. He had just been caught off guard, immersed in his thinking. His eyes focused back on what they were directed towards, and the empty eyes of the skull of the forbidden threshold were staring back at him blankly. Just above them, the bloodied palm that marked the forehead were more visible due to their color. As he got a hold of the situation again, his previous thoughts connected with his new ones. As they did, the shade of an ironic leer played out on his lips.

'Innocence, my Brother.'

 _Welcome home._

The portal trembled and started moving very slowly, gradually opening a tiny blade of air between the inside of the Sanctuary and its outside. _Welcome home,_ Azrael repeated in his head, while the door moved still, always at the same speed. He kept observing the movement absently, as a larger space opened between the wall and the corridor. _This is a place I can call home, actually. I even planned to spend the winter here,_ he remembered, but what he could recall was what Karliah had said. He had no remembrance of his own intention to spend the cold season there, even after the hours he had spent trying to remember.

The Door was opened just enough for him to squeeze through, and he stepped forward, abandoning the darkness of the night to descend into the dim-lighted space of the first few paces of the corridor leading down into the main room. Even as he just reached the Door itself, he could already piece together the exact way he had to go in order to not smash against any wall. He knew that little pocket of Skyrim like his own bandoliers, after all. Most of the time he came in through the secret entrance, but he did pass through the main entry very once in a while. For one, he could get in without risking anyone from Dawnstar seeing him if he came from the East. Even if someone had ever tried to put together his travels, all the movements done from the College to the Sanctuary could never be put together. He had made that precaution a habit. It had happened to him in the past to have tracked someone's movements, and he had learned from the mistakes of those not secretive enough to be found.

As he entered, his thoughts went quickly back to Serana, trying to understand what and how he should have arranged the elements to make her understand. There was one thing that he had noticed and that went hand in hand with what Harkon had told him, which was that Serana never openly opposed him. Whether her barely shown hurt was really felt or merely a way to manipulate him, she had never questioned anything he had said. _Although in truth, I never really give her the chance._ He could say that she had never rebelled him. _I really wish I could worry less about her,_ he thought, focusing ut of his mind for a was probably not the right word for that, however. _She could teach me a lesson on that. If what I do is worry, then her normal way of thinking is utterly paranoid. And yet, she doesn't look a bit like Delphine._ The thought that was most obsessive, although not with any negative connotations, was the list of things he was keeping secret from her. The repetition wasn't worrisome, but it came around quite often when he left his mind to its own devices. _It's completely normal,_ he thought, and that too wasn't the first time. _She has secrets and I have secrets._ She was the one among the two of them that seemed to have trouble with it. _She knows how to compromise, but this time around she has difficulties. It's as if she demands honesty on my part. But why?_ For her own inclination to change, something external had to be playing a role. What that was, however, he had no idea.

As he emerged from his thoughts, he realized he was already halfway through his path and at the end of the corridor. There was the antechamber now, a room that they still hadn't found a suitable use for. For now, there was only an old and rotten wooden table on the side and braziers lighting it brightly. The stoves mainly served as a reminder that someday, that space had to be used. Azrael walked by it swiftly, casting a glance to the right and one to the left, checking in if there was some idea that had come to him. None. _We don't really need anything else here. Maybe a some bookshelves, with some manuals. If it comes to it, I'll write something myself._ He stepped out, releasing the thoughts. He had bigger concerns, although he couldn't deny that imagining and playing with ideas entertained him to no end.

He spotted a figure sitting on the bench which they had positioned right at the end of the corridor. _Reddish,_ he thought, but the shape of the head was strange and full of folds. _Well, I know enough just by that._ The dark armor, unique in the design among the Family, was complete with a plate of metal protecting the torso, whereas the arms were covered by a similar cloth to that of the headpiece. Simple iron pauldrons shielded the shoulders and the vambraces gloves were complete with small vambraces and plates covering the elbows.

The figure raised his head, and snigger came from him. 'The Unholy Matron be praised,' Nazir said from the seat. 'If it isn't our beloved Listener.' He turned his head towards the iron grate, behind which shone the light that brightened the main hall. 'Ah…' he grumbled, 'the boys are in their rooms resting, but just say the word and they'll be right here.'

 _The boys, he said. Laegiine's not here, it would seem,_ Azrael thought, but he had no real confirmation. Babette hadn't told him enough to guess that, the last time he had been through. He had no notion of his young Silencer's schedule. However, Laegiine aside, the little vampire had assured him that she would have been there herself until he had returned, and Nazir hadn't mentioned her either. She was surely around there somewhere, probably doing something he wouldn't have been too content with. _She can act like our mother and our little child at the same time._ She really was quite special, but right then she was nowhere to be seen. _Although…_ He focused for a moment, feeling something that crept along his whole body and permeated all senses. _I can smell her. She's near._ There were other signals in the air, but it was the scent of fresh blood of the prisoners below. _Our most recent jailbirds can also make for delicious meals. I wonder if Babette ever considered it._

'Azrael, Azrael…' said Nazir, chortling once again in between and tearing the Listener away from his musings. The man had spread his arms in welcome, revealing the two sabers which hung down from his belt. The short, curved blades were complete with a simple handle and a circular guard. 'How long has it been, Brother?'

'Two months,' the Dragonborn answered with a sarcastic note in his voice, brining his arm forward.

The two Dark Brothers clasped each other's forearm strongly, the metal fingers of Azrael's gauntlet the folds of cloth of the Nazir's arm and the Redguard the cold metal of the Listener's vambrace. They had been doing that ever since they had moved to the Sanctuary in Dawnstar. Azrael knew that the two of them were quite alike when it came to habits, and when one day any of the two would renounce that gesture, the other wouldn't have complained. Between them, the contracts without bonds were the ones who worked better, unlike the ones they were ordinarily forced to deal with.

'Well…' continued the Redguard. Azrael felt his gaze roughly at the height of his eyes, and could quite easily guess why even before it was said. 'Those are quite a pair of eyes,' he said, with a smile. 'Babette did tell us you had joined the dead last time you came by.'

Azrael heard his voice muffled, as if it came from father away than it really was. He had noticed something strange. The smell of the prisoners' blood had become stronger, but on the other hand, Babette's one had completely disappeared. 'I imagine she has,' he rejoined calmly, temporarily ignoring the fact but staying alert. 'Especially because she had to justify her prohibition to see me.'

'Indeed. We were quite worried when she brought you in, but she said that anyone else than her who neared you could have suffered a painful death.' His smile twisted, changing somewhat. 'I doubted her at first, thought maybe she was up to one of her little schemes, but then we recovered the corpse that was left in the master bedroom. His throat was completely ripped open and there wasn't a drop of blood left in him. Sithis knows I don't wish nor I'll ever wish to have been in his place.'

'We'll talk more of this,' Azrael said dismissively. 'Now, have you heard about a Moth Priest coming to this land?'

'Did I?' said the Redguard. His slimed widened slowly, until he broke into laughed briefly. He closed his eyes shut for a second, and when they reopened they sparked with something else. 'Why, I thought you were the one involved in this. And it turns out that you are, but you were not the one who made him come here. As soon as we heard someone related to the Scrolls had come along, we imagined it was related to you.'

'We're linked. Indirectly. Can you tell me anything?'

'I can.' He crossed his arms, stroking his rough black beard. 'Let me think… A traveler came by the tavern, two days past. He had some interesting stories to tell. One of those was of a certain scholar of Elder Scrolls, coming here because some of his colleagues had been talking of a miraculous finding here in Skyrim. He was crossing the mountains three weeks ago. He went on and on about how mad one must be to journey through the mountain passes in this season, and I can hardly disagree. The only thing I gathered from it was that this person, whoever he is, is quite determined to come here. Considering that he came here by carriage, and provided he hasn't been capture for ransom or eaten alive, I can only guess that he has reached his destination by now.'

'Which is?'

'Solitude. Where else, if not the capital of imperial Skyrim? I can't think of any other reasons, specifically since this rumor has only spreading lately in Skyrim I, for one, knew nothing of it.'

 _There is a reason. Solitude is large, and since Winterhold is under Stormcloak control, the Priests guessed the only city with a considerable presence of scholars was the only candidate for the origin of the rumor. Logical, and quite clever in its naivety._ For various reasons, their affiliation with the Empire among them, they had most likely remained in imperial territory, anda Moth Priest isn't someone who goes by unnoticed. The only time Azrael had encountered them was in his reads at the College. Scholars of the Elder Scrolls, but by the time he was reading they were left to study the studies their masters had left. The discovery of a new Scroll was sure to have caused quite a commotion in their ranks, which was reason enough for one of them to risk such a journey. There were other things, which he kept in the back of his mind.

'Fine,' he whispered, still tying up all the loose ends of his calculation. Too many things had been left out, and perhaps his return to the normal world could mean that he was about to receive fresh information. Something crossed his mind. 'Nazir,' he said, 'is Babette around?'

'Of course she is,' said the Redguard, turning his head and gazing towards the alchemy lab to the end of the elevated part of the room, where she usually stayed. The stool was empty and there was no trace of the girl. 'Not there… But she's around, I saw her less than an hour ago.'

Azrael reflected for a moment. That was something too strange to be called a coincidence. She was the one always taunting his distrust, but not for nothing. _She's the one with who I need to keep my guard up._ She was in the Sanctuary, and when he had entered her scent was there. That kind of sensation had no linger. That meant that she was inside those walls when he entered, and now she wasn't anymore. He had not paid attention if it had grown stronger in certain places or certain times. _I wonder if she guessed I was here with someone. She has proved to be more cunning than I anticipated._

He raised his eyes and looked at Nazir. 'Give me a moment. Wait for me with the others in the main room.'

'Of course, my Listener.'

Azrael turned around tersely, facing the corridor leading to the Black Door once again. He felt the cloak whirling around him at the sharp turn, keeping him back for the first few moments. Before losing sight of Nazir, he saw him putting a hand on the left saber's pommel and turning his foot around, preparing to go down. He would call the other Dark Brothers in a metter of time. Azrael treaded quickly, his head facing in front of him, and intent on coming back to the surface as swiftly as he could.

Meanwhile, in that unanticipated time alone, he assembled everything he had just learned in the clearest way possible. He still knew too little about the Moth Priest to begin piecing together what his angle was or what they were hoping to gain. If anything, the most important piece of information regarding them would have been the exact thing they had been told and in what form the rumor had reached them. However, even more importantly, Azrael had a time coordinate. _Three weeks since he crossed Pale Pass. It has been reported that a way past the avalanches has been tracked, but that lengthens the journey. Not counting that Helgen is still a pile of ashes. That journey was perilous and time-consuming._

And on that topic, it seemed Harkon had planned that way ahead of time. _Three weeks ago the scholar was crossing the mountains. Sensibly, considering every predictable hindrance, he was in Bruma a week before. It totals to slightly less than two months of travel, if he came from Cyrodiil._ The rumors might have taken a few days to spread, thus rounding the time passed up to the whole months. _So, Harkon could in no way be the one to have spread the rumors._ A few different solutions came to his mind, but there was one that seemed the most effective out of all of them. _He must have done something remarkably clever and passed on the anecdotes directly among the scholars. He may have used local vampires to do to._ That, depending on what means of communication the Volkihar's blood patron had used, could optimistically be around two weeks' time. _If the messenger was swift; I will take it as granted._ That was a reliable average, if considering he had indeed spread voices in their headquarters and thus subtracting a degree of unpredictability to the overall plan.

The time summed to more than two months and a half, which was ever so slightly longer than Azrael's own involvement in the matter. _This dates further back in time than I initially predicted,_ he thought, drawing some more general conclusions. _Harkon either was surer than he looked about Serana's whereabouts, or he gambled._ In no small part thanks to the Dragonborn himself, his plans had worked and the timing had been almost the best he could have hoped. If there was one event that roughly coincided with that estimate, it was the time the vampires had started to cause trouble. _It would need further confirmation,_ he mused, _but the implications would be many if it were true. Both regarding Harkon's character and the whole state of this situation._

He had come to the door, while putting that all together. He extended both hands towards the side of the portal that opened to the outside, but he stopped one hand half-way. He didn't need the strength of both. He laid the armored palm on the black metal and pushed. His last musings flowed away, reminding him of how strange that series of events had been that far. _Two months… I've almost died twice, discovered a group of being older than four thousand years and delved into mysteries that were left untouched for centuries._ He always tried to maintain a sense of perspective, and sometimes that reminded him of how big some of the tasks he was tackling were. _And yet, no matter what, I keep feeling nothing. No matter how big, everything is made of small, trivial pieces._ What he called sense of perspective, some would call e sense of detachment. The scraping sound of the Door's lower part part grazing the ground followed the whole arching movement it traced.

A fissure large enough for him to go out opened, and as it did, a strange sensation reached him. He felt it in the nose at first, tingling and the descending throughout his whole body. _The scent._ The sensation was stronger than before, and it was a meld now. _So Babette is out here, and Serana isn't far either,_ he thought, putting a hand on the bow and blade on his back to make sure they didn't get stuck in the rocks bordering the exit. _I wonder,_ he mused, _if I'm worrying too much about the two of them meeting._ He almost never lowered his guard. Throughout his time in Skyrim, distrust had served him well. He trusted single individuals, but if they were by themselves. _Case in point, I trust Babette. I don't trust her should she be with Serana, however._ The thought alone had softened his view, enough for a puerile thought to cross his mind. _I'm unquestionably not the first Mer to be overwhelmed by the females in his life._

He stepped out in the open, his eyes adapting to the darkness around him. From the inside of his head, a spark seemed to come to life and flashed towards the bulbs. The eyes sizzled, as if flashing aflame before settling and giving him a decent enough vision of what was around him. Everything looked empty in front of him. The beach was skimmed by the sea when the largest waves shattered against it, and the grey sand lay, wet and heavy, on the shoreline. Trunks encrusted with salt, piece of wood and other objects were scattered along the barren coast. The high tide brought the water a few yards away from him, not far from the Sanctuary's entrance. A weak breeze blew from the Sea of Ghosts, moving the trees behind them and making them hiss subtly.

There was a sound in the cold air which was stronger than a firs' hissing needles, however. _Voices. Unclear. However…_ High-pitched sounds, small resonances and strange fluctuations in the tone, like a grown girl's voice while going through her voice change. _Babette, unmistakable. Due… West._ Not only West, but also from higher up than he was. _Higher than me, on my left,_ he repeated in his head, stepping away from the door and looking for any possible places. The beach was lower to his left, and with the high tide it was completely swallowed by the sea. _Which is why they settled on the wall of rocks of the shoreline._ He knew the place well enough.

There wasn't any way to reach them from the Black Door, if not by climbing the rocks or taking longer route. _I suppose they did the latter,_ he thought, but he had no time to lose and didn't mind a moment to let his arms do some of the work as well. He stepped closer and grabbed the spikes emerging from the stone wall at the height of his head, dragging himself up. He collected both legs, placing them in fissures in the rock. The metal of the greave scratched the stone, but made no hearable sound. He could already reach the last scab with his hands after that.

The voices were very clear now. The little distance had made the difference. '… not by too much.' Babette's voice, still. 'They're evil too, you know? Another vampire had settled in a village not very far from their headquarter, and when they found out they went to kill him. What they didn't know was that he enthralled a woman, who was keeping him hidden. If they had killed him and then waited for a few days, she would have returned sane. Instead, they killed her. Just because she had defended him.'

'For a group that presents itself in the garb of vampire hunters,' Serana said, 'they seem to have no idea what they're doing.'

'Exactly what I told the others. You can't imagine how glad I am that Azrael didn't coordinate the city's defenses alongside them. I mean…' she said, giggling, 'Now it's a lot harder for me to get in them unnoticed, I'm not happy that they're taking those measures, but I also don't want anyone to wreak unnecessary havoc. Those men though… They do concern me a bit.'

'Were the people hostile towards them for doing that alone? Without any concern for the fact that a vampire is finally dead?'

'It's not that simple.' Babette paused, a pause that would have been attributed to her catching her breath had she not been undead. Azrael strode forward, careful not to interrupt them and waiting for her to continue. 'I'm thinking how to explain it, but it really isn't that simple. If I'm to guess you're not familiar with how Riften is doing in these times, then you'd have no idea of the wind that blows in that city. The populous did show some hostility towards them, but there's an organization in that city, the Thieves Guild, that pulls a lot of strings in that city. And the Thieves Guild takes—'

'Babette.' Azrael's voice surpassed the one of the little girl, even without the need to raise it. 'That's quite enough.'

The heads of both turned sharply towards him. Serana immediately lifted a hand from the ground to remove the hair that had veiled one of her eyes. Babette's ones were gathered in a remarkably simple ponytail. Azrael inspected them both for a moment, running his gaze on their faces. The Dark Sister wasn't visibly unsettled, and in fact the smile she must had had during the conversation was still lingering. Serana's expression, on the other hand, had become quite blank. _They must have sensed me the same way that I did them, but they probably weren't expecting me to come here._ He took one last step in their direction before stopping, still a few feet away.

If there was one thing he couldn't argue with, it was their choice for the venue. The overhanging piece of foreland where the two were sitting was smooth and covered with soft terrain. The rocky stratus below was directly above the water, with the waves shattering against its base. _Two centuries at best, and this cape will crumble into the water,_ he thought, but the idea blurred after a few moments. The tip of the cape faced only slightly away from Dawnstar. The few lights that brightened the town appeared sparse, but from over there the overall effect was of a diffused, warm light. A few of the projected their light all the way to the port, revealing the shape of the boats which swayed in the motions of the waves. There were so many more details that his eyes would have tried to distinguish, if not for the fact that, closer to him, Serana had dropped her previous mask of composure and was now smiling faintly.

Azrael didn't make that scrutiny again, but he always noticed how much more her exterior appearance and character tallied together after he had left he in the castle. Aside from the more obvious change regarding her hair, she was overall more soft in her motions and had gained some more sophisticated attitudes and ways of speaking and moving. What was different now, was that she looked genuinely entertained.

'The two of you…' he began slowly. His intention was to change the subject. He didn't want Babette to finish the sentence she had started; to him, it was exceedingly clear that she was finishing her phrase by saying that they took orders from him. _Thankfully, it's quite easy to distract her._ 'You were talking about the Dawnguard, I presume.'

'Yes, we were,' answered Babette, assuming her best impersonation of her crossed self. She folded her arms and squeezed her huge red eyes. 'And you had to ruin it. For once that were having a pleasant conversation, you had to spoil our fun. Is it not allowed to talk here anymore?' she mockingly lamented.

'Unpleasant topics can be touched on in pleasant conversations,' he replied. 'Case in point, you mentioned me. I'd rather you hadn't.'

'Then I have a solution to your issue,' the girl said. She waved her index in the air twice, looking at him with a grinning smile. 'You only care about solutions, and here's one. How about you let us talk in piece, but while you sit here and listen? You might even learn something interesting. To people who are not as averse as you are to other people, that's called joining in. You're welcome to do that, and if we say something you can't stand, you just say the word. Is that fine by you?'

'It is.'

Both of them had already turned their heads towards dry land to face him as he neared, whereas before they were looking at the town in the distance. However, since they didn't move back to their original poses, Azrael thought that he could sit somewhere around and they would have continued to look roughly in his direction. There was a fir two feet or so away from him that would have made for a comfortable enough backrest. _Not a lot of resin. My cloak might just remain clean._ The marked bark of the tree was thick, and the plant itself was quite old. The branches were thick, and would hide the upper part of his field of vision. _No matter. Thankfully, I don't need to watch the skies any longer._ That was a strange thought. Above all else, Skyrim was associated with Dragons in his mind. It had been some time since that had ceased to be his main concern.

He strode towards the trunk, bending to avoid the lower branches. Meanwhile, Serana recommenced the talk. 'Ignoring the Thieves Guild,' she said, 'was there anything else to be said about Riften?'

'Nothing worth mentioning,' said Babette. Azrael, turning around and leaning down on the ground with his hands, let his back slide on the trunk. As he sat on the ground, he reached for his back with both hands, removing both the longsword and the bow from their hangers. The quiver wasn't an issue. He laid the two weapons beside him, the bow with the grip in the right direction and the sword with the handle as close to his hand as possible.

He let his head rest on the bark, pulling his hood lower so that it would not accidentally fall off.

'By the way,' Babette continued. A wry smile appeared on her misshapen lips and a similar tone was ringing in her voice, 'This Elf right here,' she said, pointing at Azrael, 'has always told me that his blood is venomous to vampires. I never touched him just to be sure, but from what he told me you should definitely know.'

'Believe him,' Serana said, her own smile mixing with a tense expression. 'I would presume you know of how we reached the Castle together, and how I was the one who turned him. In doing so, as you will know, some blood is inevitably ingested. I didn't drink much, and I almost died from it.'

'Well, well… And yet another time he told the truth without me trusting him. You would never guess,' the little vampire said, 'but he detests lying and pretending. He likes to trick people, telling half-truths and spinning riddles and other things that no one can comprehend, but that are never a true lie. There was one time when—'

'Ladies… You're talking about me again.'

Babette groaned, half-smiling still. 'All right, let's talk about something else. Serana!' she cried, eliciting a wide smile from the pureblood. 'There I was, talking about him when there's you to talk about! Tell me, how are the Volkihar holding up? When I… Nevermind, let's say that I came across references of the Clan, but I thought they were all dead. The hunters of the eastern glaciers are long gone, from what I've heard.'

'I'm afraid you might know more than I do. I only witnessed the rise of our Clan, and I have been caught up on all the events leading up to my release in less than two weeks, so you can imagine how little I know. Members of the court have told me that the eastern hunter have been struck down after their blood was so watered down that it decayed. It's been a while since one of them has been seen, and there is no more mention of them. Even their branch of ice magic has been lost to us, with very few exceptions.'

'Truly? I always thought you had remained in contact, seeing the Death Hounds stalking alongside the ones of the Clan.'

Serana's lips pursed. 'I'm not sure there's anyone who still practices that type of rituals. There are very old members of the Clan, some are still alive from its very foundation, but none who can work that branch of vampiric magic. As far as I have seen, only two Death Hounds remain in the wall of the Clan's Keep. The others have either been dispatched or are the creation of lesser branches of that magic.'

'How interesting. And how is the rest of the Clan faring, if you don't mind my asking.'

'Not at all. What do you want to know?'

'Too many things for one night. How long have you been around, what have you done in all this time?'

'If you don't know these things, then I'm to guess you're not of the Volkihar bloodline.'

Babette grinned. 'I'm not. I was born in Cyrodiil, and that's where I was infected. That makes me a far relative of the infamous Cyrodilic vampires, but only in blood. I've not been in Skyrim a long time, and I've never met one with Volkihar blood in their veins. Of course, before he came along.' She pointed towards Azrael with a wry smirk. 'But let's not talk about him, because he doesn't like it. You, on the other hand, cal tell me something.'

'The Clan has been around for four millennia now. Some of their original members are still alive and have been around for that immense amount of time. They're faring decently, although they never show themselves around very much. Especially in the old days, some marginal members set off to found their own dens and create their own little groups, and while they still exist, not many have endured all this time. The bigger group, the eastern hunters, we've already mentioned, and I think a similar fate befell most of those who left the Keep.'

Azrael felt his head pressing on to the side, the muscles in the neck relaxing after the prolonged moment of slight tension. The two had stabilized on topic that were not his immediate concern, and many of which he had already exhausted in his previous journey with Serana. Seeing the two of them, if looked with an outside perspective, was mildly amusing. _A three hundred years old vampire that appears a child barely above ten on one side. On the other, a young woman who in reality has existed for four millennia. And has experienced only eight-rough years of those._ _And speaking of the latter,_ he thought, looking at Serana sideways, _she is keeping the right things secret. She might think naively, but she knows her way on this plane._ It was the positive side of the phenomenon of discrepancy between her declared beliefs and tangible actions that he often noticed in their debates on horseback. In times like the current discussion, the very concept of discretion described her approach quite well. However, prudence wasn't on her list of traditional values she held to, in spite of the common use she made of it. _I can respect when someone does the sensible thing, even if he doesn't realize,_ he thought.

In spite of the minor lies and half-truths that were being told, the intensity of their bond was surprising, considering how little time there had been. The minor lies and half-truths made that connection even more curious to Azrael, who had no patience for people who were not frank with him. _If it's related to work or business, then I can accept it. But that's not what they're doing. Having a friendly chat while telling lies doesn't even figure in my list of activities._ He lived in shadow, and how much he revealed himself was the only meter distinguishing a contact from a friend. There were no lies with friends. They seemed to think otherwise on that topic, as they did about conversations in general, it seemed. They were talking for the sake of talking, and that was something he knew people did but that he had never fully understood. _Words are for True Need,_ he reminded himself. On that, he agreed with the Dragons. Words need to have a purpose. They are a means to an end. _Clearly,_ he thought, looking at the two as Serana started talking once more, _we don't share the same view on the matter._

As his focus on the words being spoken and the conversation in general waned, several minor thoughts passed through his mind, only to subside moments after. With every new one that faded, he was left with a clearer sense of calm and tiredness. The cool, voluminous feeling of tranquility was nothing new, although he relished it every time it simmered to the surface. The sense of tiredness, on the other hand, wasn't of the kind he was used to feel after a long day of travel or several nights where he hadn't slept much. _It's related to vampirism, without doubt. It's been five days since I've fed, my life functions are on halt._ Maybe it was the lack of feeding or the lack of activity in the past days causing that feeling. _Perhaps as soon as I sense the smell of blood again, I'll be as active as I'll ever be. No one knows._ He tried to respire, but there was no air in his lungs. _Solitude's next. I wonder what awaits us there._

His gaze came back to the woman and the girl in front of him, who were still actively discussing something. Babette was explaining something with complex gestures of her hands, speaking at intervals and sometimes stopping for a couple of seconds and staring fixedly at the ground or in at the horizon before recommencing. Serana sat comfortably on an isolated flat piece of rock that emerged from the dirt. She leaned on one hand which was put to her left side and her legs were collected and bent on her right, and the same side's hand grasping her leather cuisse. Her hair fell gently down her neck and temples, and she was looking keenly in the little vampire's eyes. An interest that appeared courteous and composed more so than it looked authentic. But then again, Azrael discarded the detail as something that perturbed him alone; furthermore, how else could she have survived in the place she had grown up? She had learned to hide her true interest and feign it in other scenarios. The feigned expression was the one who had endured, and that appeared even now that she was really involved. _Do others even realize it is, or was, a fake?_

Despite seeing them vividly, their voices sounded as if they came from far, far away. He didn't ever hear them clearly, by then. They were a whisper, only slightly stronger than the breeze blowing around them and making the branches of the fir move. He felt his head sliding to the side, facing towards the right. The choices were two. Straiten it or let if fall. It would not have remained still. He didn't pose any resistance to the movement, and in the end his gaze shifted along with his eyes. His vision blurred as the movement occurred, and then it centered once again on the new landscape. He saw the edge of the piece of land that they were sitting on, and beyond it, the endless expanse of the sea.

The image mesmerized him. There were barely any light being cast on the restless surface of the water, which appeared and disappeared repeatedly. Blades of light were formed when a wave aligned itself with a light source, but as soon as the crest moved past that temporary state, the whole line plunged once again into darkness. Different point were lit in different times, and the water looked black as tar, thicker and heavier than it actually was. It still moved, up and down, although that simple motion looked to be immensely complex when seen so sparsely. The line separating the water from the horizon could barely be made out, and the sea looked darker than the sky.

A shiver made his upper neck quake, and then it ran down his spine slowly. His arms and legs quakes weakly as well, as if shaken by the corporeal cold that the shudder brought along with it. It dispersed only once it had reached the lower parts of his back. Just as that had gone down along his back, something parallel had seemed to have crept up his spine. He felt his head snipping slightly, and everything around was seemingly slowing down. The waves slowed, the wind suddenly felt weaker. He felt weaker himself. There were voices whispering around him, emerging from the water like shadows. Their whispers came hushed, as if from beyond. _The Sea of Ghosts,_ he thought. Something slithered inside his chest, slowly tracing a way while leaving a dull pain behind, emptying his chest and leaving only a light emptiness behind. _A grave for how many?_ The endlessness of the water, for a short moment, became too terrifying to be remembered.

'Azrael?' The voice was muffled, but it became clearer even as the word ended. He felt as if a curtain was being taken away from in front of his eyes. 'Is everything all right?'

It was Serana speaking. Her tone was soft, but there was a note of worry. Automatically, he felt ready to jump up and grab the handle of the longsword, because he had learned to associate that tone, and hers in particular, to possible threats. That once, however, the worrying was for him. It was less marked. Not the fearful, sharp voice that some people would make when afraid, but it fell in the same spectrum. _That's interesting. And why is she asking, anyway?_

'Why?' he replied. Slowly and gradually, he turned his head towards them. The bark bent and creaked behind his head, making sharp and thin sounds, and as he came back to his original position and let his shoulders drop downwards.

'Yes, that's an excellent question,' Babette intervened, and Azrael caught her glancing at him before she looked back at Serana. 'Why did you ask? Does he ever ask you?' she said, grinning just enough to show her small fangs.

'No,' Serana said hurriedly. Her eyes were a bit agitated, almost as if she felt uncomfortable. 'He just looked strange. Sorry, I shouldn't have said anything,' she quickly explained, still with her voice matching the feverish look in her eyes. 'I just wanted to ask you,' she concluded, turning towards Azrael again, 'if you could wait here for me a while longer.'

'What do you need to do?'

'Lay off, Azrael,' snorted Babette. She struck the ground with her palm twice, as if calling him. 'I told her she could go and have a quick, refreshing bath in the Sea before everyone wakes up. It's a pleasure denied to everyone who's not a vampire, so we should at least do it! It'll only be a moment.'

He turned away from the girl and towards Serana directly. 'I'll meet you in front of the door where we stopped. Go.'

She put her other hand on the ground and rose slowly. Azrael noticed that she looked towards him fixedly, but there wasn't any reason for this that he could think of. He looked back in her eyes. Despite not being able to see him, she seemed to have developed a kind of intuition that allowed her to guess when he was looking at her. When he looked at her in the eyes, she sometimes said things that she wouldn't have had he not been showing any attention. She wasn't the first person to notice his gaze, but she was the first who reacted in such precise patterns. Many other people cared less or weren't aware of the smaller signals they were given, whereas Serana picked up on all of them; sometimes, she overworried about them too, which was probably a result of her particular perception. _In some ways, we're more alike than I first imagined,_ Azrael thought.

She stepped towards the edge of the shore, to his right, where he was previously looking. She looked down at Babette, beaming at her and waving her hand twice. The little vampire grinned right back, with a more playful gesture of her small hands, and turned around as the woman walked past her, casting one last glance towards Azrael. He waited for Serana to walk by, but he bent his head slightly to the right afterwards. _She's going short way down,_ he realized, as she seized the rocks up with a sweeping glance to see where the descent would be less arduous.

'Azrael.' Babette's voice came from his left, but the Dragonborn didn't react to it. He was still looking Serana, who had found a place to climb down the rock face. The grass squeezed under her boots straightened almost immediately when she made another step, mainly because the weight was so little it wasn't enough to push them into the dirt. 'Azrael!'

His head slowly turned towards her. 'Yes?'

'While she's off, what do you want to do? Do you know what you came here for?'

'I do.'

'And were are you headed?'

'Solitude. I presume she told you something.'

'That she did,' said the girl, giggling. Her eyes turned towards the sky and she looked thoughtful for a moment. 'I liked her, you know? She was very modest. I never actually thought,' she continued, her smile turning faintly malicious, 'someone who can stay with you with all this time might have such an agreeable character. She's charming. I reckon she was dying to talk to someone, after being stuck with you.'

'Possibly.'

'Anyways, you seem to be in quite a tight spot with this matter. She wasn't too open about the Clan. Had I not known who she was from the start, I'd have assumed her to be a minor character, a mole or some other kind of mediator. How else would have such diplomatic tendencies. And it turns out, she's the daughter of their leader. Fascinating. But,' she said, spanning her fingers and closing her eyes shut for a moment. 'I'm going off topic. So, Solitude. You're going right to meet that scholar, I imagine. And Nazir probably told you everything.'

'He did.' He let his hands fall by his sides and on the ground, spreading the fingers and letting the whole surface of the armored palms touch the ground. 'Now,' he said, pushing himself upwards, 'I'm going back in the Sanctuary. I'll talk to the others and hear out the Night Mother. You're welcome to follow me.'

The girl planted both fists on the ground and bounced up energetically. 'Of course I will!' She rubbed her hands one against the other and then the palm on the back, for both hands. Afterwards, she shook her head, making her ponytail bounce around.

Azrael stepped back and picked up the bow. _The Bow of the Nightingales,_ he thought, looking at the bird inlaid in the enchanted wooden structure. Once back in Riften, Karliah was deserving of thanks for her help. _You could say we're almost even now._ He grabbed the grip with his left hand and brought it towards his back; he knew where the hanger was without thinking. The peculiar sound played out, and he retracted the hand. He grabbed the handle of the longsword, and held it backwards, rising to his feet in the meantime. While he absently looked for the hook that kept the blade in place, his gaze swept across the small area, seeing if he hadn't left anything.

In front of his, but outside of his field of vision, he heard Babette giggle faintly. 'And there she is.'

He finished his final check and then raised his gaze, his left hand finding the place for the for longsword. The Dark Sister was looking towards the sea, not far away from the beach, her small hands folded behind her back. Azrael planned to follow her gaze, but when he pinpointed the area she was looking at it became apparent what she was referring at. Her sentence, which would have been quite cryptic otherwise, also made sense. She was looking at Serana, who had taken her leather boots off and was bent forward, probably unlacing the leggings. For some reason, Azrael felt the strong impulse to look away. His head moved imperceptivity, but he resisted it. The tension that was left felt like a wooden stick inserted on the left side of his spine.

'I trust,' commented Babette, still looking towards the woman, 'you've pondered well whether we need to talk about her or not.'

The Dragonborn cracked his neck unhurriedly. 'Why should we?' he asked impassively.

'Oh, dear…' murmured the girl, 'of course. Well, there seems to be a strange bond between the two of you, no matter how much you continue to distrust her. And for once, I'm not saying that negatively. She is surely holding some secrets of her own, which might be too painful to reveal. But I don't really care about her. I care about you.'

'What is that supposed to mean?'

'Well, I think she has struck you too, in spite of how much you might reject it. She is your opposite in some ways, but I think you have much to share. Note that I said to share, not in common, in case you meant to demolish me with your meticulous arguments. And I also think you're quite taken by her, based on some things you have told me.'

Azrael took a step to the right, looking at her. 'Meaning?' he asked, a faint scorn streaking in his voice.

Babette reached him with quick steps, letting her arms dangle by her sides sluggishly. 'Would you kindly describe me if you have any particular feeling that is linked to her especially? Because I suspect it might be the case.'

 _Bullseye._ He waited for her, and then he strode forward. He felt the light breeze blowing the left side of the hood on his cheekbone. 'It's peculiar,' he murmured, not finding the words for it. 'When I'm far away from her, I feel both safe and sad. Feeling safe because of distance is something I can remember well from other times in my life. Sadness is something new. I don't think I have ever felt it related to a person…' He stopped, turning towards Babette. He observed as she chuckled silently. 'What?'

'Nothing,' she said, 'I realized how rare it is for you to say that you actually feel something. I know, I know, you have told me time and again that it's not true, but appearances can deceive very well. I'm sorry,' she concluded, not giving up on her laughter. 'Continue.'

'Conversely,' he rejoined, ignoring the interruption, 'when we were reunited the sadness disappeared, only to be replaced a sort of frenzy. It was a sensation completely alien to me. I have never felt it before.' He stopped, not just because he had said enough. 'You're still grinning,' he observed, coldly. 'What is it?'

'It's something different now,' she said. 'I have finally understood what part of the problem is. It wasn't just vampirism, Brother. You have a mean case of infatuation, and you don't even seem to have considered it.'

The Dovahkiin turned his head slowly, feeling imperfections on the inside of the armor grazing his skin as he made the motion. A surge of energy flowed through his shoulders, stiffing the arms and causing the hands to clench imperceptibly. _Knowledge brings clarity,_ he thought. _It's true._ Inside his lifeless, dead flesh there seemed to be a flame burning. _The greatest contradiction I have yet witnessed. Death beckoning desire._ He listened to his thoughts, and kept walking slowly alongside the little vampire who, to her credit, remained completely silent.


	18. Chapter XVII: Tears of the Undying

Chapter XVII: _Tears of the Undying_

* * *

Azrael aligned both hands on the wings of the iron portal, flattening the palms against the uneven surface. He gave a first, relatively soft push, and the two began to move with a hiss that came from below, where they scratched the ground. The two thicker bands that sealed the two extensions together moved, producing a sharp grazing sound as they separated. He kept on pushing until the door completely opened. Among all the official entryways into palaces and citadels he had seen, that one was by far the smallest. It was almost the size of a normal door. The gates of Dragonsreach needed to barely open to allow the passage to one person. The Blue Palace was more in keeping with the delicate and refined tradition of the Empire and less with the grandiose but sober architecture that prevailed in the rest of the province.

The Dragonborn stepped inside, the first thing he felt being his eyes sizzling and adjusting to the sparse light as opposed to the almost complete darkness of the outside. He caught small light sources within his field of vision, and as he looked he saw that most of them were candles. _This place is seldom this dark, which means…_ His gaze raised and pointed towards the ceiling, where the iron chandelier hung from the hinges keeping in fixed to the slabs. The candles on it were unlit. During the evening, that was what illumined the entrance as well as the small section where the Jarl's seat was placed. _She is here,_ he thought, not doubting the words of the guardsmen he had interrogated, _but she could be on her way out. And not without reason._

The rest of that section of the entrance was deserted. The kitchen was empty and without any light, not even the one of the fireplace. There was no one other than Serana and himself in sight, and even the upper level was only barely lit. A few candles could have produced that light; perhaps a few torches stuck to the wall, but that was it. Otherwise, beside the lack of activity, everything seemed in order. The plants in the small fountain overlooked by the small balcony on top of the forked set of stairs were well kept, and the water was flowing calmly and making a pleasant background sound.

Azrael put together what information he had, and what he thought could be safely deducted. _There are very few people here,_ he reasoned, listening and hearing some solitary footsteps coming from upper floor. Two pairs were softer and one more metallic, as if wearing heavy greaves. _The kitchen is empty, but this is the time in the evening when Elisif has supper. And she adheres to routine._ He returned on the lights, noticing a pattern. _All unlit, except the ones who would help someone reach the exit. So they were kept lit for someone to get out of here through the door._ He waved his fingers, trying to piece together something else. _The guard told me the Jarl is here. However, the Burning of King Olaf is taking place. And I saw her sentinel run towards the Palace as soon as he saw me enter the gate._ Elisif was many things. Just, kind and even wise, but she had always managed to display a shrewd side of herself, especially when he was involved.

He listened once again to the footsteps. They were circling around the upper level of the Palace, bordering the lower area where he was at the moment. They had come from behind him and now they were coming closer to his left. A softer sound of elegant footwear and the harsher sound of battle boots. _Metal sole, no protection. There's only one suit of armor in Skyrim that has that design, and it's the steel plated design._ He nodded silently, feeling the familiar surge of energy and renewed focus that solving a riddle gave him. _Elisif was waiting for me, and she is coming towards us with Bolgeir._

'Azrael,' Serana said from behind him. Her tone was curious, but confusion was what gave it its particular sound. 'Why did we stop? Are we waiting for something?'

He didn't turn around, not only because he didn't think it necessary but because he had spied a movement in the upper part of the room. 'We are,' he answered. The parapet hid most of the space behind it. Bolgeir Bearclaw, however, was a tall man, and his brown hair appeared above bulwark only to disappear moments after, rhythmically with the heaver footsteps.

Serana didn't reply, and the reasons why that was could have been many and far between. Regardless, Azrael waited for another few moments before two figures emerged from behind the parapet and onto the stairs, following the trace of lit candles. The armored housecarl was indeed the one to who the brown mane belonged and that made those sounds. He was clad in his usual suit of plate armor and with his enormous greatsword was strapped to his back like a halberd. His face was rough and covered in scars and bruises, one of which didn't date too far back.

In front of him, walked Elisif the Fair. Azrael could still remember the intensity of his doubt when he had first heard that namesake, considering that it could refer as much to her character as to her appearance. Her delicate and graceful traits surrounded big, dark green eyes, which were sometimes briefly veiled by the long eyelashes. The chin was small, and the forehead flat. A simple golden diadem adorned it, and it disappeared on both sides of her head under her long, silky chestnut hair, left hanging loosely on her back with the exception of a small braid that fell precisely down her spine.

She wore an elegant gown, dark green with blue and golden ornaments. The main color matched the one of her eyes almost exactly, while the golden details drew the eyes of the observer towards her hair, for a reason that Azrael could not clearly explain. The hues were similar, but that effects was most curious. The robe fit tightly on her shoulders, chest and slim waistline before starting to widen into a long skirt from the hips. It remained suspended a few inches above the ground, not touching it and revealing the simple boots she wore.

 _If you don't know her as well as I do, one might miss the fact that she is very weary._ Despite the smile and the minuscule amount of maquillage she had applied to hide the slight rings under her eyes, there was an expression of sadness that was on her face even in that moment, even if masked by the stern, gentle look. Her shoulders were low and her movements imperceptibly somnolent. And even with that gown on and despite her housecarl not being far behind, a small stiletto dangled by her side. Azrael remembered it well. _Diamond shaped cross-section, twelve inches the length of the blade. Steel, with a mainframe of ebony._ He had forged it himself, only a few months back. He liked to think that, together with everything they had shared, someday it might have protected her. _If anything,_ he thought, looking at the way her smile was changing, _it's still good to bring a grin to her face. An outcast she remains, and I do too._

The Jarl walked down the last step of the stairs. 'I thought you might guess I was waiting for your arrival,' she said. Her arms opened and raised, and Azrael could see they were spread the precise size of his torso.

'How perceptive,' he whispered deeply, feeling her infectious grin drawing a leer on his own lips, as well.

He opened his arms as well. When she came within arm's reach, she made a longer step to reach him immediately. She closed her arms around him, still careful not to entangle her sleeves in the small barbs of his armor but then holding on tight. Her head slipped just below his chin, if she lowered if just a little, and she did just that, bending it just that little bit. Azrael closed his arms around her too, and kissed her.

–––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––– A Ω ––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––

On the cheek, but still. There was no explanation, no justification and no reason in her world as to why he had done it. The vapor that seemed to have numbed her chest was growing hotter, and among that turmoil of sensations, a lonely thought hammered insistently and relentlessly. _Is this really him?_ She quickly denied it, but the feeling emerged once again, and with it, the thought. _Is this really him?_ Because no matter how hard she tried, there was absolutely nothing that would have elucidated what had just happened, outside of Azrael not being himself any longer. There was no link. _Nothing._ The vapor was almost boiling, and she forced herself to remain still. On the one hand, it felt like it was draining her of all her strength, but on the other it seemed it was giving her new one. She was in a state of constant flow, but she felt frozen. She refused to make a choice, and continued to deny everything.

A part of her wanted to avert her eyes, because the mere sight was too painful to experience. It wasn't as if it wanted to completely forget it, but to pretend it was already a thing of the past. Nevertheless, that was only a weak voice. One that still wailed in agony as she looked as Azrael's hands slowly descended down her back and reached her waist before he retracted them. _He was the first to end the contact. That is exactly how he behaves normally, at least._ Everything else was still heavily off balance. Shifting her gaze to their faces, she noticed the woman's hand had reached for his hidden cheek. Something even more violent stirred inside. The line beyond which emotions became physical sensations she could clearly feel had been crossed already. Her hands were tickling and she felt her mouth, how dry it was. _No._ She slowly brought her hands behind her back, keeping them in contact with her body. _No._ She clenched them into fists, trying to disperse some tension.

Her eyes moved to the man that had walked down the stairs behind the young woman. A tall Nord with a coarse visage, marked by scars. He wore a heavy set of armor. Serana, however, wasn't interested in anything about the man other that his apparent lack of reaction about what was happening to the one he was supposed to protect. His face didn't show any signs of distress. _To tell the truth, he seems very calm._ It was almost as if he allowed himself to relax, now that Azrael was there too. _That makes no sense,_ she thought. _I knew that Elf for a murderer, an brigand. Instead, he seems to be quite close to this noblewoman._

She couldn't help but play out the moment of their embrace in her head, over and over again. There was something about the spontaneity of that gesture that had seemed strange, almost impossible. _None of them felt any embarrassment._ She had grown up somewhere where the smallest of signals was an important cue to know on which side someone was. None of those signals passed her by without notice, after all those decades spent at the castle. She had seen formal embraces, and there wasn't one example that resembled what she had just seen in the slightest. She had seen family members, friends and soldiers hugging. But the more she thought of it, the more it became apparent that the only people who would grip each other with that mix of relief and desperation were lovers. The more she tried to run away from the thought, the more she became convinced that what she had just seen was a lovers' embrace.

'I'm on my way to the ceremony,' the young woman said, retracting her hand from Azrael's cheek. 'Whatever it is you need, I'll tell you as we go there.'

Azrael brought his left foot backwards, clearing the space between the woman and the door. 'After you.'

She smiled his way again, exceedingly sweetly. She intertwined her fingers and put both hands on her lap, and then she stepped forward, surpassing him. As she did, Azrael turned his head towards the armored bodyguard, and the two exchanged a silent glance. _They know each other,_ Serana understood quite easily. _They also trust each other, to some degree._ It was special kind of trust, one that is issued between two people who share something to protect. _My mother and father sometimes showed it, when they both pretended to care about me._ That very thought stung her right in the heart, but something else grabbed all of her attention. After looking at the man, Azrael had turned again, and this time towards her.

All she could feel from the lingering cruelty of her own thought was a dull and lingering pain. Everything else was frozen, unable to react in any way to the glimpse the Dunmer was stealing her way. She could barely see his eyes shimmering under the shadow of the hood, but they were only two faint vermillion sparks and nothing more. Even without it, she could guess he was looking her way. By that point, she could really feel it. It was a specific sensation, something she could recall in detail and even name, as opposed to before they had reached the castle, when it was something completely out of her control. Now she she understood when he did it, but she could not understand what was going through his mind. She was stiff, and had no will nor way to control herself.

He veered his eyes elsewhere a moment after. She felt the upper part of her body suddenly releasing an amount of tension she had failed to feel, and the constriction she still felt reminded her of the sensation of drowning or suffocating. The relief was the equivalent of being able to breathe again. _Why did I feel so… Choked?_ It was something that happened a lot in the first days of their companionship, but it occurred decreasingly as of late. _Because you knew you are not his favorite anymore,_ a voice whispered. Her teeth closed together and her canines ground together for a second.

She looked towards the exit. Azrael and the woman were stepping in its direction, a short distance from one another. She turned around, and saw that the armored man had stood still, looking at her and not saying a word. However, as he saw her turning, the bodyguard bent his head slightly. 'My lady,' he said with a gruff voice, opening a palm in the direction of the portal.

'Thank you, sir,' she said automatically, putting a softness that she didn't feel in her words.

She raised her foot to reposition it in the entrance's direction, and even that seemed to cost her a lot of effort. The limbs fell heavy and sluggish, as if completely unwilling to help her move. She moved heavy but silent steps towards the door, her gaze pointed down but unable to escape the shadows cast on the ground. Azrael's shade, recognizable by the roundness of the hood and the large shape on the cloak, almost touched her feet. She was so absorbed by her own inner commotion that, at first, she failed to realize that the woman was talking.

'Of course,' she said. Her voice was silvery, she noticed, very soft and calm. 'Everyone around here supposed it might have been related to you. You're late, I'm afraid. The Priest has left the city two days ago. He understood that what he was looking for was not here in the capital. I'm sorry. If I had known, I would have found a way to keep him here.'

'You had no way to know. Where has he departed for?'

'He didn't tell anyone, but I looked into it further and found out that he was bound for Dragon Bridge to meet with someone. That's where the events started taking a strange turn, because according to my men there was a large platoon of a group of vampire hunters traveling to meet an imperial scholar. A find it hardly a coincidence. The Dawnguard, they call themselves. I'm sure your sources have provided you with more information than I could ever give you.'

'What can you tell me about his stay in the city?'

'He remained here only a couple of days and didn't share much information. He visited some places in the vicinity, but most of the time he remained in his room at the tavern, where his guards forbid everyone from accessing. He wasn't seen often. The people who have spoken to him report of him being a mild man, very courteous and soft-spoken. His departure was quite swift. His guards loaded the cart with which they traveled in the heart of night and they left at the crack of dawn. The few things I know come from a legionnaire, an incredibly verbose man that has been used by Tullius more than once for his ability to make anyone talk. He befriended one of the Priest's guards and reported what he had learned to me directly.'

Serana moved her gaze onto Azrael, because everything indicated the woman had finished her list of things to say. However, the Dunmer didn't say anything. His head was directed towards his right, where the young woman was, but was lowered towards the ground. _He's thinking,_ Serana understood, easily recognizing that strange kind of silence. Despite her attention being taken by the conversation, a voice in the back of her mind stuck a dagger in her back without notice. _You didn't care about what they were saying. You only cared how they were saying it. You haven't even listened. It he asked you what they told one another, you would not be able to repeat it._ She tried to ignore that as best as she could. Initially, she tried to prove the voice wrong and remember everything that had been said, but soon found herself unable to do so.

She looked for something else, anything at all that would make the shame go away momentarily. Looking in towards Azrael again, she glanced rapidly at the woman. Her face was peaceful, although still imperceivably melancholic, and she looked in the Dunmer's direction without any signs of impatience or discomfort. _He is calm with her, and in turn she is calm with him. I always get nervous when he drops silent, and she doesn't. They must know each other well._ What was even more strange, was that not only there wasn't any tension on either side, but there was no tension among them, too. It was a subtle difference, one of the few things that she had learned later on in her years. When two people talk, both of them can be either nervous or calm and the link between them can be either stable or unstable. They were both calm and the link was stable, something that in her experience was exceedingly rare. Moreover, they were clearly members of different casts in society, which usually translates into the link being unstable. And that wasn't the case. One was a murderer and the other was, as far as she could tell, a noblewoman. And still, they acted as if they were exactly on fair ground.

 _In retrospect,_ she thought, _he has been very elusive throughout the journey. Especially about what we were to do in this city._ There had yet to be a time when he would be the one talking to her without the precise intention to know something, but this time it had been different. He wasn't merely silent or cryptic in his answers, he didn't answer them at times. When asked about predictions, something he usually shared, he simply answered that he didn't know. She had learned to give no thought to it. When trying to understand him, something that was expressed too little wasn't indicative. Something that was expressed too much, instead, was highly indicative. _For instance, he was too affectionate just a moment ago. Although, perhaps affectionate isn't the right thing._ His embrace had looked welcoming, and small signal had to be amplified. In spite of it being the logical path to take, she decided not to finish that reasoning.

Once again, she searched for an escape. _Well, if…_ she thought, stopping in her tracks. She felt a sudden wave of enjoyment getting a hold of her. _Wait, wait… If the Moth Priest isn't here, it means we are leaving immediately._ It felt just like before, as if she could breathe again. _The dummy burning…_ she remembered, from when they had strolled down the same lane they were walking on now. _That must be the ceremony where she is going to. We will soon depart, then._ The image of the Palace, the city and everyone about that evening were tainted, blackened as if spotted with ink. Even the dark, clear sky dotted with stars gave her no relief whatsoever. Only the thought that they would depart soon did. _And then, we'll leave this behind us._

It was a simple matter of awaiting the moment when their way crossed the smaller street that led to the place where she had seen the people united. _It's not far now._ The sound of the drums and lutes was already reaching her ears. As they had walked by before, she had felt the strong desire to join the festivity. Eat, chat and dance with all the people there and forget for one night about all the things that were happening. The thing that surprised her most was that she could not relate to that feeling anymore. The idea of being with those people wasn't pleasant anymore. All she really wanted was to get out of that city, flee as fast as she could and leave everything behind. There would be no regrets.

'Thank you, Elisif,' Azrael said, after that prolonged silence. He had been deep in thought for a long time, even by his standards, and his tone was still reflective. Serana shifted her eyes on the woman, but made a mental note of what could have only been her name.

'You're welcome,' she said, smiling, 'I wish I could have told you more, but that's all I could gather. I image it is enough to continue.' She paused briefly, and it was done with a reason, it wasn't that could be understood. 'If I may,' she continued, 'why are you trailing this man? If it wasn't you who summoned an expert in Elder Scrolls here, who did?'

'There's no time for that story tonight. We can't stay.'

'Why not?' she asked, her features taking on a teasing look. 'The Priest is waiting his contacts in Dragon Bridge, you will gain no time by setting off right now. There are people here who might have something more for you, and some who still owe you favors.' Her gaze and Azrael's seemed to be linked, having a short wordless exchange. 'Stay,' Elisif said, and it really sounded like they had said something to each other in the meantime. 'For the Burning of King Olaf, the last courtesy you did to my subjects.'

Serana felt the tips of her fingers itching. _No, no you won't be able to._ They had reached the junction, her path and Azrael's was towards the gates, across the city, while that woman's lay right on her right, where the smoldering effigy was and where the people were still assembled. _You will not manage._ That place was to be where the group would split, where they would recommence their journey and leave the city to their merrymaking. _It will…_

Her thoughts were cut clear off right then, because as she waited for Azrael to reply to Elisif, he turned towards her tersely. 'Would you mind?'

The solid barrier of thoughts and expectations she was holding out against the voices in her head was pierced and shattered, dispersing in a hundred small shards as if it was glass. She felt her lips glued together, unable to open. She could not think, let alone talk. It wasn't the first time it happened, and the others had brought nothing good. _No, focus._ Despite her efforts, the memories were clouding her mind. She violently resisted the wave, but was unable to think of an answer. Her main doubt, after being remolded into words, slipped out of her mouth. 'Should we not get going?' she said, but she felt her own voice trembling.

'Not immediately,' he answered emotionlessly.

'Of course. Well, no, I don't mind, but…'

'What is it?'

'Nothing.'

She was looking elsewhere, but she could see Azrael's head bending ever so slightly to the side. 'Are you well?'

She stared down, the anger that was growing inside her sharpened and weakened simultaneously by the feeling of shame. 'Yes,' she muttered. _Hear the silence,_ she thought. _That woman and her bodyguard, what will they think of me?_ The sensation crept along, as her mind tried to find new solutions to a problem that she had already been unable to solve. _You're a Daughter of Coldharbour._ But the thought, which usually gave her strength, only sapped her of it. True, she might have killed the three of them in the blink of an eye, but that didn't matter. She felt so small and insignificant that even the thought of being able to kill them seemed pitiful and childish to her.

As she raised her head, she found the Dunmer's hidden face still turned in her direction. _Stop,_ she groaned internally, and the sound didn't escape her mouth by miracle. Her head was bursting, but at the same time she felt she had too little time to think. Every thought was unfinished, overcome by a new, stronger one. It was impossible to calm them. More than anything, now she was completely confused. _How did she manage to convince him? It's the first time I've seen him surrender to someone, and it had to be her of all people. There must be something more he didn't tell me. They're lying to me. All of them._ It didn't sound impossible for them to have arranged that exchange only to make Azrael staying in the city reasonable. Azrael, by then, had turned his head towards Elisif again. _Look at her,_ she thought, _all smiling. A filthy liar, that's what she is._

'Fine,' Azrael said to the young woman in an even tone. 'We'll stay a few hours, but we'll ne off before dawn.'

From the moment he finished saying it, the smile on the woman's face grew brighter and brighter, until much of her somber expression had been completely wiped away from her face. Her hand darted towards the Dunmer's gauntlet, gripping it tightly. 'Come,' she said, stepping in the direction of the large crowd and pulling his hand like a child would do with a parent.

Azrael strode forward, following her. The armored man, who had stood behind Serana throughout the entire conversation, went behind the two without a word. After Elisif's voice had waned, the sound of the crowd had become less noticeable than before, and the rhythmic ringing of the greatsword hitting the back of the bodyguard's cuirass was the only thing left. This once, not even him turned around to see where she was or waited for her to go first. She stared in front of her, her gaze centered on the two figures of Azrael and the woman, but never really looking at them. Once again, she had plunged from the painful reality into the equally painful thoughts.

An acrid taste filled her mouth. It stretched across her palate and became so unpleasant that she would have liked to either swallow or spit out her own tongue. _If only I could just… lose control like my father does._ He wasn't so conflicted, and when he was angry he did many things that he would have later regretted. But he did them without a thought for the consequences. The battle was fought outside of him, whereas she could even feel her anger without it being followed by shame and confusion. _It's so simple to be him…_ she thought while raising her head, not sure if the last word referred to Harkon or Azrael.

In the meantime, the latter of the two had stopped on the rim of the circular space where all the people were assembled. There were wall a few feet high protecting the edges, probably because there was nothing but ravines beyond it. The place itself was higher on the rims, where a whole ring of steps descended down to the center, the lowest spot. The burning effigy was right there in the middle, the shape clearly of a man but with a crown on his head. That was all she saw before her eyes wandered back to Azrael, with Elisif still holding him by the wrist. They stood motionlessly, as if waiting for something. A something that wasn't too hard to imagine: the crowd's attention.

Several heads were turning each seconds passing, ever increasing in number. _Beautiful dresses_ , Serana thought, taking a look at what type of people was there, which relieved her for a moment. She had hijacked a solitary thought. _What people are they going to meet?_ Using that excuse, she lingered on her observation a little longer, since that was something she was good at. _Noblemen, merchants._ There were normal citizens as well, with no particular distinguishing features, and a very large number of musicians and, judging by their proximity with those holding instruments, singers as well. _They can't be just bards and troubadours here by chance. This festival is somehow tied to them._ Ever since she had come to know Azrael well, that little part of him that had taken root in her continued to live and prosper, and when she sought refuge in it she always had a brief understanding of how it felt to be him. _But it doesn't help me in understanding anything about him, so what the point?_

'People of Solitude!' called Elisif. All eyes, including Serana's moved towards her. 'As we celebrate the Burning of the False King again, we have a guest.' Only at that point, she let go of Azrael's wrist and respectfully stepped away from him. 'All hail the Dragonborn,' she said softly.

The crowd revitalized, and dozens of fists and mugs were raised above their heads with a roar. 'All hail the Dragonborn!' Their arms bent in unison, lowering but their rising even higher than before. Mead spilled from the few mugs that had been shaken with too much strength. 'All hail the Dragonborn!'

Serana looked, feeling her own eyes expanding. A choking hold grasped her throat for a moment. She watched the hands and fists lower, this time definitively, and another cheer exploding from the crowd, saluting Azrael from a safe distance away. He turned left first and gave a slow nod, which almost resembled a very slight bow. He turned to the right and did the same towards the other wing of the crowd. An even greater cheer raised after he did that. _They worship him here,_ she realized by looking at their genuine enthusiasm. _But they also fear him,_ something in turn was made clear by the distance that everyone had put between them and him. Only Elisif had thus far gone closer, but she did seem to be the strange exception. _Well, of course she is…_

Serana felt that the loud shout had somehow tossed the haziness off her, and she moved her first step to reunite with the two of them. _They're alone. Where has the bodyguard gone to… There he is,_ she thought right as she spotted him in the shadows cast by one of the pillars on the rim of the open space. He kept his eyes fixed on the young woman, who had been approached by a young man with fair hair. As Serana closed in, she also noticed the light blue eyes and a simple warpaint on the side of his head. As she shifted her eyes again, she saw Azrael looking in her general direction.

'There you are,' he said, turning to the other side afterwards. The breeze shook the rims of his hood, but not even the light of the waning fire seemed able to illumine his face.

 _I can see his eyes, though._ She had not yet seen his face directly once, which she found immensely strange.She approached him and stepped by his left side very carefully, feeling as if every step could have been potentially dangerous. _There's nothing dangerous. You're just imagining it,_ she repeated herself. 'What is this celebration?' she asked, stealing a glance at Elisif. She was on the Dunmer's other side, and she felt safer with his black, towering frame in between them.

He didn't answer immediately. He was very focused on the dancers in the middle. The musicians had yet to recommence their music, but there were already people gathering around the smoldering effigy and forming a thick circle, bopping around and moving their hands. 'The Burning of King Olaf,' he said after a while, before Serana could guess where exactly his attention had gone to. He still wasn't looking towards her, but now his head was moving slightly every few moments. 'The last favor I did to her,' he explained, bending his head towards Elisif. 'She needed something to strengthen her presence in the city, but she wouldn't do it willingly. So I did it for her, we could say.'

'And I hope next time you'll simply say what you want from me,' the young woman intervened from the side, looking first at Serana and then at Azrael with a courteous smile. 'The music will start soon. Will you dance with us?'

Serana felt a mixture of the excitement at the prospect and the disdain she felt for that woman. _You have only distracted yourself,_ a voice told he, _but you can't outrun that hatred._ And it was true enough. Ever since she had heard those cheers, she had felt awake, and it had wiped away all thoughts from her mind. However, she knew by experience that there were two occasions when this happened. The first was when the painful thoughts only emerged because of inactivity, and the other was when she drowned real thoughts in excitement. What was happening was a stunningly accurate example of the latter. Merely the burning, bitter sensation that constantly burnt in her throat was proof enough.

Azrael turned towards her way gradually, stealing another brief glance at the crowd first. Once looking in her way, he raised his left hand, open. 'Serana?'

 _What in…_ 'No, no,' she said, flashing a shy smile. 'Thank you, I…' She stumbled on her own words, trying to correct that instinctive reaction. 'I…' She felt her eyes lowering and losing contact with the Elf's. When she caught a glimpse of his left hand, even her smile faded.

Azrael had brought his elbow closer to his torso, retracting the palm. His little finger bent backwards; then his annular, his long finger. _No…_ The index closed on the palm too, and the thumb curved, placed on the second phalanx of the last two. His hand was now closed into a fist, albeit not a clenched one. She looked as he lowered the hand and relaxed the arm, letting it dangle by his side. Only then did his fingers reopen, one after the other, as if redoing the same motion but in reverse.

'Fine,' she heard him say frostily. 'Elisif?'

'With pleasure,' the young woman said softly. 'My only hope is that you'll have improved since last time.'

'I have held ballets with death and danced with the shadows ever since we last saw each other,' he said evenly, but there was a cryptic and mocking note in his voice. 'You'll be the judge of my improvement.'

The cold air blown her way by the movement of Azrael's cloak woke her up again, and this once it woke her up to something even more excruciating than the last. _You idiot…_ she told herself, _making the same mistake for the second time. That's not what you're supposed to do with him._ Not only that, but there was something holding a grip ever stronger on her. It was a sense of diffused fear, as if the walls themselves could come to life and jump to her throat. _Why?_ she thought, stepping backwards.

Every reality she could grip on seemed to make no sense any longer. There was a forgotten feeling and impulse arising from the brutal core of the vampire that was ordering her to do something. Pain, any pain would have been enough to seal that wound. It varied between having the urge to slaughter everyone there or tear her own limbs off, one at the time. _I have the strength. Yes indeed, I do._ Those thoughts only lasted a few instants, and they were nothing unusual, but she had never felt them so clearly in all their complete and utter madness. She was so taken with her pain that she took a step back and struck the rim of the floor with her heel.

In the short moment when she was falling to the ground, her head cleared, filled only with the intention to land without hurting herself. Her hands moved quickly and opened towards the ground, and when she hit it her elbows bend just enough for her to soften the hit. She looked around, but everything seemed fine. She was now sitting down on the pavement, under the shadow of the building behind her. Her hood was still lowered on her face, but as she looked around she noticed that no one had seemingly noticed anything. Her ears were filled with a shrill noise that was produced by her own mind, but she could hear the music playing and she could see the bards producing it. She raised her hands from the ground and encircled her bent knees.

Time was flowing strangely. At least, all the sensations had left her and she was alone once more with her thoughts. While before she had felt the compulsive need to do something, now she felt like not doing anything at all. She sat, and she had no wish to rise. _I could stay here forever, and nothing would change._ She leaned her chin on her knees, dangling. _Look at me, the frightened and naive child, again. I can't escape that fate._ She hoped something would have changed, that patience would have yielded something good, but that had not been the case once more. Nothing ever changed for the better around her, and even inside her.

 _Why did I even think of going together with him? What good has it done?_ Long silences, days spent traveling and pain without end. _I could have remained in the castle. I would have been safer there. I could have planned things on my own._ But now, she was out in the world again, a world that she did not know, and she could do little more than follow Azrael's instructions. _I heard them talking about the Priest before. He has hatched a plan, but what it is?_ She could run away, true. If despair would be what was left, she would even fly away despite her hatred for her other form. But even then, with all the speed in the world, she would have still been a step behind him. He knew what to do and she didn't. _I haven't even listened when I should have. I already wasted my opportunity._

The sound in her ears was progressively diminishing, and the music became clearer every new moment. The sound of lutes, drums and flutes was very clear, but beneath it all there was also a harp playing some sweeter, softer notes. The melody was jovial, but there was that hint of sadness at its fringes. _A bit like me,_ she said to herself. _Everyone here is having their fun, and I'm not allowed._ Everywhere she looked, there was nothing other than happiness. _I do not belong here. I belong four thousand years ago. That was my world. This is not my home any longer._

A couple, twirling around, passed a few feet away from her, taking no notice. They were young, probably around twenty years. The man was missing two fingers, which Serana noticed every time the girl turned her back in her direction and the man's right hand appeared, holding her shoulder. _There's a war on, apparently. That man cut his fingers to prevent the recruiters from taking him._ He had to sacrifice much to save his life, and that sacrifice seemed worth everything in that moment. The wide smiles the two of them were beaming at once another belonged only to people who were madly in love with each other. _He'd have cut all of his fingers to remain with her._ They kept twirling, until they disappeared behind the frame of the effigy, parts of which were still consumed by the flames.

In trying to follow them on the other side of the ceremonial figure, her eyes fell on a man dressed in superb clothing, donning a large blue tunic with fine seams on the torso. A large collar of fur adorned the shoulders, and an expensive jewel hung from his neck. _I know the type,_ she thought, _ever seeking prestige and attention from his peers._ The man was alone, but there were several other people who were moving around him as if they were a group, and when they met they did gestures with their hands, smiling and laughing. _I wonder if he is one of the saner ones, who appreciates what he has, or one of the unwise ones who would sacrifice everything for just a little more._ Regardless of which, he was having fun. The smile that adorned his face could not be faked.

That group passed by a young man, which Serana recognized at once. It was the fair-haired one who had briefly approached Elisif before. He was a broad-shouldered, strong-looking man. He wasn't of the same flock as many of the ones there, who had their cheeks clean-shaven and their faces clean. That one was a warrior at heart. He had a long beard, tied under the chin and equally long hair that were also tied behind the head. The expensive dress was replaced by a heavy cloak of brown bear fur. She had noticed back when she had seen him for the first time that he had a saddened expression, one that often appears on the faces of ones who have experienced the grief of losing a loved one. _He doesn't join in,_ Serana observed, noticing him beating the rhythm of the song with his foot, but not dancing with the others. _One day he'll outlive his own grief and dance again. I won't._

She felt one of her eyes burn, and that spot rolled down her cheek. It was a tear, a single tear, all the water that her undead body had managed to gather. She smiled, but she also felt her teeth grinding. _It's pointless._ She swallowed, even though there was no saliva in her mouth. She cleared the droplet of salty water away from her face. _I will always be an outcast._

* * *

Memories of home, in a time long forgotten by everyone who lived in the time where she had waken up. Castle Volkihar had always been the same, pretty much, and it was one of the only things she had seen clearly in her life. She knew every nook and cranny, and knew all of its ways by heart. There was one way that led to window-sill, where she could see Solitude. She had read stories of that place, but had never visited it. Her family never allowed her. Now that she had the chance to see it, she didn't really feel like going around. She had seen the windmill outside, the walls, the Palace. That was enough for one time.

During the time she had spent sitting, thinking, always there against the wall and on the sidelines, all of her senses had gradually diminished their activity. She didn't hear the music almost. Her left hand gripped the knee, and her arm was parallel to the ground in a way that could rest her left cheek on her elbow. She wasn't even looking in the direction of the crowd anymore. After a while, the pain of watching everyone else having fun aside from her had transformed into boredom. As soon as she had lost interest, her past had began to emerge, a little at a time. She had remembered things that she could not recall before, and she had stopped counting time.

'Greetings.'

Serana felt herself freezing stiff. She didn't understand why at first, because the sudden fear wasn't at all related to the person who had spoken. The voice had come from behind her, and while she would have been quite embarrassed of being talked to while laying her head on her elbow so childishly, that wouldn't have been enough to cause that reaction. However, after a moment's thought, something occurred to her, and with that, something Azrael had said. _You're afraid that your thoughts will unexplainably become reality, so you try to not think certain things. When you do think them, you stiffen,_ he had told her.

She turned around, not raising her head from its comfortable position. After the very few moments needed to recognize the person beside her, she understood why she had frozen. A searing needle pierced her throat, and the hatred she felt was a lot stronger than her fear of her own thoughts could control. _You. Of course. Are you here to torture me, you lying rat?_ Her eyes wandered around, but there was no trace of Azrael. _Oh yes, you figured out that he protects me, so you waited for him to be elsewhere._ Her hand closed on her knee a little tighter.

The name of the woman took a little longer to surface. _Elisif,_ she remembered. Her dress was illumined by the brazier behind her and by the distant light of torches that had been put in the middle of the circular ring once the dummy had completely burned. Her hair weren't as perfectly combed as before. Her forehead was lucid. _Sweat,_ Serana thought, _she must have danced for a while._ Every time she had caught a glimpse of her, she had quickly turned away. _I had to intention of seeing you again, but you give me no choice._ As she continued to look, there was something eating away at her. _What is it?_ she wondered, trying but failing to understand.

'I was thinking,' Elisif continued, taking her away from her thoughts, 'our mutual acquaintance did not introduce us properly before.' She put her palm on her chest, smiling politely. 'I'm Elisif. I'm the Jarl of this city.'

 _What?_ Azrael wasn't the friend or lover of any noblewoman, but of the governor of the Hold. _He never mentioned this. Not once._ The more she discovered, the more his silence during the journey seemed suspicious. _Well, of course not. He was hiding the truth from me, and not she's here to enjoy herself. Between the two, he has done the most decent thing._ Now that she knew that, she remembered the woman talking about subjects before. Her subjects.

'I am Serana, my Jarl,' Serana answered after a moment. 'How may I be of help?'

She had not put any real effort into smiling back and responding, but Elisif seemed disarmed briefly. 'Not tonight,' she said afterwards, grabbing her skirt from behind and lifting it in order to sit on the steps. 'Tonight, I would like to do something for you. You seemed uncomfortable before, and then I saw you sitting alone.'

A thread of light penetrated Serana for a moment. _Perhaps she means good…_ she thought for a moment, but she shut down the impression as soon as she felt it clearly. _She managed to make me believe she was being sincere. She must be a master manipulator._ 'I'm just very tired from the journey, I needed some rest. Traveling with out mutual acquaintance, as you called him, can be quite exhausting.'

'I know, I have traveled with him too,' she said, looking off into the sky for a moment. 'His arrival here was a complete surprise, but he hasn't told me anything about you. I asked, but wouldn't answer.'

Serana tried to keep her teeth from grinding. _Yes, of course. He's done that to me, and now you pretend we're on the same boat._ 'Really?' She pondered her options, but she grew tired of it. It was time to prepare the strike at the heart. 'It sounds strange, him holding information from you. You seem very close.'

Elisif bent her head both ways repeatedly, her smile fading and molding into a more serious expression. 'We are,' she said vaguely. 'That does not mean he tells me everything. Sometimes, it's for my own good. But what about you?' she asked. A smile appeared on her lips again as the pensive look left her face. 'You're the one traveling with him know. Why? Are you doing anything specific? Is it related to the vampire troubles we've been having?'

Serana flashed a smile, knowing that it would buy her some time to think. _Something doesn't add up._ The thread of light was getting larger, but her skepticism was as strong as ever. _She is tricking be, it must be. But then again…_ She could not explain everything Elisif was saying through the lenses of her doubt, but she could with the ones of her trust. 'Yes, it's vampire related. Now we have this new task to handle. The Moth Priest, or so they call him.'

She waited for the simple answer that would follow. Elisif was looking at her more intently, and kept silent. _Something's not right,_ she thought. The young woman had a way of looking at her that made her feel slightly uncomfortable. _Curses,_ she thought, _I thought she'd be up for this trivial chat, if she was here to torture me._ At once, all the missing pieces reached her. The expression on her face had been getting more and more confused and lost, and she had completely missed it before. She was focusing on spotting any grins or leers that would confirm her doubts, and had lost others things along the way.

'Pardon me,' said Elisif, shaking her head, 'but do we already know one another? Or do you know about me and haven't told me?'

Serana shook her head, but her brow furrowed under the hood. 'No. Why?'

'You're angry with me, I can feel it. I can't find any reasons for it, however… Is it something Azrael has said? Or is it me?'

'Azrael has nothing to do with this.'

She regretted her sudden reaction right after the words slipped out of her mouth, but it was too late. Her eyes moved upwards and met Elisif's, and this once she was grinning. Her smile had something more than polite about it, a curious mixture of affection and playful tease. 'Quite the contrary,' she said, giggling, 'I think he has everything to do with this.'

Finally, something sparked in Serana's mind. It took time for her to understand a person, but now she felt she had done it. Whereas before she was kept away from the truth by her own suspicion, now she saw more clearly. Elisif, despite also being the soft and gentle person that she had seen all that time, was a Nord at heart. That brief lighthearted comment had proved it, and it was reason enough to assume there was a strength deep inside of her that was very much awake. A mild person, true, but one that had very high standards and held to her principles even if her life was on the line.

Once that change had taken place inside of her, something seemed to happen on the outside. Beforehand, she saw a simple and fragile your woman whose only ability was her cunning. Someone who used one's own beauty to deceive others. _That's what made me uncomfortable…_ she understood at last. _That she's beautiful._ Now, the shrewdness had shifted into wisdom. She saw that she was talking to an old soul, who knew her way in life. She was also faced with someone strong, in control. She felt small, for the first time since she had laid eyes on her. _She is a deceiver, though. I wonder how many people have committed my same mistake, and paid dearly for underestimating her._ _But at least, It would seem she isn't lying to me._

'So,' Elisif said, 'I think you should explain me what exactly binds the two of you. It's apparent that it's more than just work.'

Serana gathered the last of her willpower. 'I will,' she said, inflexibly, 'as soon as you tell me what binds the of you. The whole story'

Elisif looked at her wryly. 'Very well,' she said, taking a deep breath and crossing her legs. 'Me and Azrael are… friends. We—'

'Friends? That's it?'

The young woman's smile widened. 'Former lovers, fine. But saying that doesn't mean anything. We met in unpleasant circumstances, at the wedding of a very important noblewoman who was killed during the celebration. After the fact, he escorted me back to the Palace while my guards searched the place, and that was our first chance to talk.' She pursed her lips, and her eyes narrowed. 'We were both different from the people were are today. He kept visiting me afterwards, and together we both grew up. There was a period in which we tried to make our bond into something that went beyond friendship, but it didn't last. That time, however, has made our relationship something I would never give up. That's the long and short of it, if ignoring the practical details of where and when precisely.'

Serana could hardly contain everything she felt and thought, but her long years of court intrigue proved effective at keeping her head clear. 'You're the first person I see who isn't afraid of him,' she said nonchalantly.

Elisif giggled. 'A lot of people are frightened by him, true. He has a grim reputation, and there are many people who judge based solely on it. In general, a normal person believes that what one does in a situation is what one does in every situation, and as long as they use that reference, they will be terrified of him. How else do you judge someone who murders for a living? I see beyond it, and by seeing it I earned his respect, which is a lot more effective than suspicion in protecting me from him.'

'You know him quite well,' Serana said, feeling the tension rising. _How long have I searched someone to discuss this with, and it could happen any moment._ She wasn't smiling any longer. Her face was relaxed, and all of her attention was for the young woman's words.

'More than a lot of people,' she said, but she followed the sentence by sighing and looking down for a brief moment. 'Sometimes I feel like I have only scratched the surface. However, our time of discovery is a thing that belongs to the past, whereas you are with him every day, I presume. How can you know him less than I do?'

Along with the tension, Serana felt excited, someway. _I had hoped to have this conversation with Babette, but he interrupted us._ Now Azrael was nowhere in sight, and it was good. What other people knew him with which she could talk? There was her father, but she'd rather not do it. _Besides, I doubt my father has the same problems that I have._ Elisif, on the other hands, seemed the right person. 'I do not understand him,' she said, 'that's why. I could tell you numerous things he has done, I could find words to describe him, but I have never really understood.'

'I know the feeling,' Elisif replied, giggling. 'It's probably why you're so attracted to him.'

Serana felt as if a stone had materialized from naught right into her throat. 'What? No!' she whispered, knowing that if she had let her voice go everybody would have heard her. Her voice was broken by laughter, an uncontrollable impulse. _Good thing I don't have a single drop of blood in my arteries right now._ It was the only thing that prevented her from blushing abruptly.

'Of course you deny it,' said Elisif, looking away. Her pensive expression returned on her face as she was looking in the sky. 'Everyone who meets him for the first time experiences a strange blend of pleasure and pain. Some people run away from it, and some are enthralled by it. I count myself among the latter without any regret or shame. You should as well.'

Part of her mind was obviously trying to deny it, over and over and over again, but it could only battle the truth for so long. _Because that's the truth, yes._ Everything that had followed a certain moment of their time together was marked by that, if revalued. _Honestly, even my attempts to make my father kill him were very strange expression of that. I wanted to rid myself of the feeling my ridding myself of the person for which I felt them._ 'I mean…' she said, not finding the words. 'How can you not?' She looked at Elisif, hoping she'd understand. 'He's like a riddle that has no answer, and yet I fixate on it looking for that answer.'

'I know.'

'And as much as his silence irritates me… I see it as a sign of wisdom.'

Elisif's expression changed quicker than usual. Her eyebrows pinched and her lips tightened. 'No, you're wrong there,' she said slowly. 'He's not wise. In fact, I'd say the wise flee his footfalls. He treads a path that is prohibited, and no one seems to be able to help him. And that's probably it. It's elusiveness that makes him so alluring. He is out of our grasp, he is forbidden as well.' She paused again, scratching her chin. 'To reach him would mean join him on that journey, something I wasn't willing to do. That is why we left the romance behind of us.'

'But what brought you together in the first place?'

Serana saw her scoffing, and as it ended she hummed briefly. 'Look at those people,' she said, gesturing at the center of the ring with her head, and Serana looked. 'Now they're truly happy, but there's something about them that we didn't share. Me and Azrael. Tomorrow, they'll be back to their lives, and to them that is granted. It's easy. They will complain, they will have their conversations, they will do the thing that will push them through the day, almost as if there is no other choice. They'll put a smile on their faces, not asking themselves anything.'

Serana felt the strong impulse to lower her head, because knowingly or not, that description fit her perfectly. _It feels good, not asking any questions._ Many people in the curt were like that as well. They lived on splashing in their bad deeds and plans without any thought. _Let's see where she goes with this…_ she thought.

'When we found each other,' Elisif continued, 'we soon saw someone different. It had been a long time since I had smiled genuinely, and he probably saw it on my face. He was pretty much the same, at the time. The weight of many events weighted on his shoulders, and despite having something new that was giving him some comfort, he too was gloomy and sorrowful. He didn't show it the same way I did, but it wasn't long before we dropped our masks. When we did, we found ourselves being the only two people in the world we knew who acknowledged the difficulty to merely live, the unending grief and distress of life. Ever since we parted ways, I've been searching for someone similar.'

'And he hasn't?' Serana asked, keeper her tone as light as possible. It was only after a moment that she regretted saying what she had. _You idiot, you'll sound like you only care about yourself._

She turned around and looked at Elisif, looking to fix things, but the droll look had reappeared on her face. 'I don't know if he has been looking for one, but he certainly has found one.'

 _So…_ The searing needle stung her in the throat again, even thought she wasn't really understanding the implication. _Or maybe I do, and I just don't hear it._ 'Who?' she asked, without managing to hide the surprise in her voice.

The young woman crossed her arms and placed the just below the curve of her breasts, drumming her fingers against the side of her chest. 'You haven't noticed…' she murmured, her smirk widening with every new moment. 'I guess you truly don't know him as well as I do. I admit, he can be had t read.'

'Elisif, I still haven't—'

'Haven't understood, of course,' she interrupted her. 'Well, it seems to me that you're his new flame.'

'What—'

'You know what that means,' she said, her eyes and voice both taking on a sweeter and almost mocking expression. 'You're denying the truth. Deny that to yourself, but do not pretend you haven't understood.'

 _Well, she does sound a lot like he does now._ Interrupting artfully in the middle of a sentence using the silence in between two words, remarking their ideas many inflexibly many times and confronting the other person with a sincerity that bordered on brusqueness. _Those people that you don't understand,_ she thought, _they are constantly trying to forget how difficult it is to live, it's not as if they don't feel it. But you know it, don't you?_ That had cast a new light on some things Azrael did. _They're very similar, but they're also the opposite._ Most of their differences could be probably attributed to the kind of life they had. Elisif was a ruler, and she was used to dealing with other people. She had learned to be gentle and to show her inner strength only when necessary. Azrael spent most of his time alone, and the rules that led smooth interactions between two people probably had fallen very low on his list of priorities. The people he dealt with probably didn't mind or even admired his direct, cut-to-the-chase approach.

As much as that train of thought was very interesting, she brought herself back to the one thing she needed to face. _Because thinking about something is also a way to escape the truth._ Still, she didn't know how to approach the concept. _She says Azrael likes me… That doesn't make sense._ When she presented the problem to her consciousness, it was fierily repelled. _Knowing without believing… That's probably another skill they both master._ In spite of every attempt she made to recall any sign of that, she could not. _I'm looking for conventional signs, however. That will never work._ The offer to dance, the jewel he had given her. _I wonder._

'Elis—' Serana stopped, but before correcting herself she looked at the young woman. She smiled warmly, understandingly, and gave her a nod. 'Elisif,' she repeated, smiling weakly herself. 'Thank you. I'll need to think over it, but thank you. I still don't believe it, but I think you might be right.'

The Jarl of Solitude looked at her without saying a word. Her smile had faded from her lips, but it lingered in the corner of her eyes, where the wrinkles were late to disappear. _Why is she not saying anything?_ Serana wondered, feeling some tension rising. _What did I…? Of course,_ she thought, recalling the words. Empty thanks and a simple declaration of her inner decisions and states. Nothing that she could have had an opinion on. _Those are words of courtesy, and it would be courtesy to elicit a response. But this is not the case, is it?_

'Knowing what you told me,' she continued, 'how exactly can I manage to get closer to him? To make him open up.'

'The latter's impossible,' Elisif said dismissingly, 'whereas the former isn't out of the options. There are two ways. The first one will require you some degree of observation, and that would be to get your own understanding of him.' She stopped for a moment, giving her a little time to process it. 'The second is a simple thing I learned from experience. I think that our bond endured because he was the one controlling the time and place where we met. He is not comfortable with not having control…' she said, but trailed off. She turned towards her, her expression unclear. 'Did you understand?'

Serana checked herself. _They want the truth, they'll have the truth._ 'No, I didn't. I don't think you understood it yourself, either.'

Elisif chortled, shifting her gaze away. 'Very true. Fine, it'll take a little longer, but I'll have to use a metaphor. What very few people understand about Azrael, is that he's afraid. He's mortally afraid of a lot of things. Unlike many, he finds a refuge to these fears in solitude. When he's alone, he feels protected. He's particularly afraid of other people, or more precisely, of the reactions which other people cause inside him. For that reason, he decided to follow the forbidden path I already mentioned before, a safe haven where nobody will ever disturb him. Are you following?'

'Yes.'

'Good. When walking that road, very few people dare to get in his way and even fewer manage to reach out to him. When they do, he could even kill them. That path is his realm, and his own laws apply there. However, moving on that path did not come without a sacrifice, and he knew it very well. That's why he sometimes comes back to the highroad, and interacts with the people he chooses. If, like us, we are for one reason or another seeking his companionship, than it's a privilege to be among those people. However, he doesn't allow anyone to walk his own path without knowing them well, and to know them well, he has to come to them. In practical terms, as much as it is unsatisfying and might require patience, the only way to gain his trust in not leaning on him. He is afraid of having others depending on him. The moment he realizes that someone can survive on their own, his fears subside.'

 _Showing that I can survive on my own…_ Serana thought. _I've done the contrary, many times._ She cud recognize that pattern easily, not only because it was what she didn't by instinct, but also because he had always shown distinctive signs of disapproval when she did it. _I judged him by conventional means… I thought that showing him my trust would gain his in return. I was dead wrong apparently._ And even then, she was trying to not think of that. She wasn't really independent at heart. She liked relying on others, the feeling of closeness it provided.

Expect that she also hated herself for it. Her whole life had been a constant back and forth, again and again, between dependence, happiness, betrayal, independence, happiness and insufficiency; always in that order. Her life was made of cycles, but she had never liked or embraces that trait. Sometimes, in more ancient times, the cycle of dependence would repeat itself twice, once with her mother and once on her father, before moving on to the cycle of independence, which never lasted all the same. Alternatively, she felt sure of herself and happy with her own condition in both parts of the ever-repeating phases.

She could understand almost without thinking that she was going through the dependent part of the cycle. _I am looking for someone to rely on._ A voice deeper inside her cruelly added something. _To cling on to. Tell the truth._ That continuous rotation meant that her self-hatred was ever-present, and that there wasn't really anything that could satisfy her fully. _And I don't even know what could. Azrael could, because of the way he thinks. He would see the problem, identify the causes and fix them. I only see the cartload of painful, terrifying symptoms._ There was a lonely shred of hope, that perhaps one day he could have helped her with it. _But what will I do in the meantime? If I don't keep protecting myself, the ground will not be there for me._

Overall, once she emerged from her thoughts she was feeling worse than before. No matter where the destination was, there was a long road ahead. What's more, it had to be done while also completing that task of their. Finding Moth Priests, handling the court and who knew what else would go through her father's mind before than was over. _Oblivion, why does everything have to be so complicated?_ There seemed to be no exit, not way to get out. _I need to go somewhere, but first I'll have to get away from where I am. And I don't see any door._

'Elisif,' she said, not finding the will to look in her way, but she knew she was. 'I have a favor to ask. Two, in fact.' She pursed her lips. _How I'd like to draw a deep breath right now._ 'When you see Azrael, tell him I'll meet him by the gates where we left his mare. And, the second, if you see me again tonight, leave me alone.'

'I will,' said the Jarl of Solitude in her soft voice, rising to her feet. Her dress rustled softly, the sound almost covered by the music playing. 'I'm glad to have met you, Serana. Farewell.'

'Farewell, Elisif.'

She focused on the sounds that the woman made in leaving. Steps, soft and barely hearable steps, that disappeared in the other noises once far enough. _I can't know if she was like this before they met, but I can definitely see Azrael's touch in her actions._ She had welcomed her request to be alone without comments or any reactions, she had not felt personally spurned by it and had understood readily according to what she had been told. _The same story as when Azrael asked me to dance. I told a polite lie, something he took to the letter. This once, if I had wanted her to stay, I could not have said something like this. A pity it took so long for me to learn,_ she thought, the irony hiding a great deal of regret and anger that she could feel but could not put into words.

She turned towards the center of the open space. She merely wished to look at it for one last time before leaving, but something strange caught her eye. As she drifted swiftly along the walls, not supposing they would be hiding anything interesting, she picked up on the frame of someone. Large, dark, and hidden in the shadow of the palace behind it. The torches in the middle of the ring didn't produce lights strong enough to illumine that place significantly. _I know who that is,_ she thought, recognizing the shapes thanks to the heightened sight.

 _Azrael, who else._ The Dunmer was standing against the wall, one foot on the ground and the other leaning on the wall itself. The hood was lowered on his face, his arms were crossed and he had wrapped the cloak around himself like a mantle. He could be barely seen in the shade, especially in contrast with the light which brightened up the center of the ring. _Where is he looking at?_ she wondered, but his head was utterly motionless. Even at that distance, however, she could sense something. He was more than motionless with his head, there was a very complex kind of stillness that irradiated from him. _He must be daydreaming, as he put it._ And along with that, came something else. A soft, warm feeling, that she couldn't name.

 _Fine,_ she thought, standing. _We'll meet in the morning._ She looked towards the archway leading under the building next to them and back in the city. _Everyone who's not here will be asleep by now._ A sleeping city would make for a delicious nighttime meal for a pureblooded vampire. A voice called again in the back of her mind. _You're just running away from the truth._ But she knew that very well. She should have thought over everything, not ignore it. _But I don't have the strength. Mortals get drunk, and I'll do the same. On blood, but still…_

* * *

A/N: I realized just before revising that it's been a year since DKNR has started. This is a good chapter to end that timespan on. I've had my eye on it for a long time.

Thanks to our Guest for the review on the last chapter, and I'll see you in two weeks.


	19. Chapter XVIII: End of the Trail

Chapter XVIII: _End of the Trail_

* * *

Below many other sensations, there was a layer of enjoyment in watching the situation unfold as it did. She was also part of that strange picture, and in no small way. She, the object of the discussion, was looking two people argue over her, while one was not looking her way and the other wasn't even looking at either of them. In fact, the Solitude guard didn't even grace her with a glance, while Azrael was focused on looking around the tumbled wagon.

'Dragonborn,' the soldier insisted. A blonde beard emerged from his helm, and that alone showed that he wasn't merely a Imperial legionnaire given to the guards. He was a Nord, and the Nords all had true respect for their hero, as it appeared. If he was arguing with him, then Serana's presence was something that he wasn't willing to accept lightly. 'I am willing to let you work on this, but we don't know the woman. We will escort her back to the town and you will meet her once you're finished. This is clearly the work of vampires, and they told us not to trust anyone we don't know.'

Azrael's hand, which was slowly grazing a timber beam that made up the carriage, stiffened. Not only did it stop, but the fingers closed every so slightly. 'Who told you?'

'The vampire hunters who came by,' answered the guard. 'The Dawnguard, or whatever they're called. They—'

'The Dawnguard…' whispered Azrael, cutting him off. His head turned shortly in the other direction, on the other end of the cart, and then rotated tersely back towards the guardsman. 'The Dawnguard were here and you didn't think it worth the mention?'

Serana caught several signs of distress in the man. Seeing his profile, she could notice that he brought his weight slightly backwards, as if meaning to initiate a step rearward. His hands shook also very faintly, and through the small fissures left for the eyes she could see both of the widen. 'I…' he muttered, 'I didn't think it important, Dragonborn. You asked for information about the attack, I had no idea…'

'Silence,' Azrael said, coldly. He rose to his feet, letting his arms loose by his side and looking the other way still. 'You'll go back to Dragon Bridge.'

'But the woman—'

'The woman stays with me.'

The guardsman stood still, but only for a moment. He was trembling, and every moment he remained increased the chances of him being reminded of his order. He finally turned around, and in doing so shot a fiery glare at Serana through the cracks in the helm. A pair of hazel eyes were hidden behind them. She looked him walking away, the head faintly sunk in between the shoulders but a hand proudly put on the pommel of the shortsword he carried. The sound of his footsteps on the dirt road were one of the only noises that remained in the air after the words disappeared.

Serana turned around, and looked at Azrael. A curious thing she had noticed that last day was that every victory of his was also a victory of hers. She had not spoken a word during the debate between him and the soldier, but the simple reality that he had successfully send him away gave her a semblance of the exhilaration of victory. _Well, we are a team. Individual victories are still victories for both of us._ Two higher vampires were a particularly powerful team, as well. _A two man army, we could almost say._ On the other hand, that didn't seem to be new to Azrael. The stories she had only began to hear about him and the skirmish she had witnessed in Dimhollow Crypt both were quite indicative of his habit of being a one man army, as well.

'Have you found anything?' she asked, stepping closer. She was very much glad the guardsman had left the two of them alone. She felt better when no one else was around.

'Do you know anyone names Malkus?'

The face of the Orc quickly came back to Serana's memory. The greenish skin marked by the red war paints and the enormous teeth coming our from his lower lip, which were almost more terrifying than the canine teeth that had been prolonged by the transformation. _That greenskin always rubbed me the wrong way, but he was faithful dog._ Her father kept an eye of regard for him, because if there was need of someone slaughtered, he was up for the task and didn't require much thanks. He enjoyed it, and would continue to until the end of days. The transformation had only worsened his bloodlust, according to the court members. How _does he not know him? Oh yes, of course…_ she thought. He had stayed in the Keep in the days prior to Azrael's return with the Chalice. He wasn't one of the old members, either. She had only met him two days after her reawakening after biting Azrael.

It took her a while to put the name in the context of where they were, and when she did surprise got the better of her. 'Malkus? What about him?' She glanced around hurriedly, but didn't see him anywhere. 'How do you even know his name?'

The Dunmer held up his hand, clutching something in between the pointed ends of his fingers. It was piece of paper, burnt on one side, but with some visible writing on it. 'This scrap bears his name. It instructs the vampires to abduct the Priest and bring him to Forebears' Holdout.'

'Malkus is a member of the Court,' she explained, suspecting that he would have liked some more information even if he had not explicitly asked for it. 'He departed from the Keep two days before your return, and he wasn't there the day you left, so it's highly unlikely you remember him.'

'An Orc, with red tattoos around the eyes. Long black hair. Was it him?'

She stopped for a moment and could not find words. _How does he even remember? The only chance was when he entered the Keep for the first time, when he brought me back._ She had been so tense during that whole moment that it was unlikely that she had noticed anything specific. However, she had been the one to initially do the talking and she had led the way from the gate onwards, so it wasn't impossible by any means that he had spied the Orc among the people sitting at the tables. _And he was the only Orsimer present, so it is possible. Still, quite surprising._ After their additional time together, she was more convinced than ever of what she had told her father about his greatest weapon being his mind.

'Yes,' she said, slowly and with a slightly teasing tone. 'I find it quite incredible of you to remember him, but you did described him perfectly. He is one to go out and coordinate dens of lesser vampires so that they would help us, as far as I know. He's rarely at the court and doesn't stand the politicking involved, so he much prefers to stay out of anyone's business. I can see him out here, managing this abduction.'

'This is more than an abduction by now,' Azrael said, folding his hands behind his back and looking at the cart, casting short glances at the corpses.

'What happened here, exactly?' she asked.

'It was probably late in the afternoon, not too long ago.' The Dragonborn swept his gaze around, and then looked towards the road. 'Two vampires approached the caravan and toppled the cart with their sheer strength. The claw marks on the wagon's beams are clear. Next, they slaughtered every single one of the Priest's guards, but not before one of their own was taken down.' He shifted his gaze towards the remains of the vampire that lay on the ground near the carcass of the horse. 'An arrow struck him from behind and broke the bones, and the soldiers finished him off upon seen him weakened. Then, the two who had overthrew the wagon grabbed the Priest and escaped with him. What didn't make any sense was the amount of newer footprints near the scene.'

'And now they do?'

'Definitely. If the Dawnguard met the wagon and followed the vampires to Forebears' Holdout, there's a good chance they'll already be there. The prints are of light boots, marked soles, no prints I had ever seen outside of their headquarter. Moreover, this trace in the dirt is strange, but now I recognize it. The head of a Dawnguard runic hammer, laid on the ground so that the wielder could lean on it. The blunt portion is generic, but the forked pointed end matches flawlessly.'

'And how do you know they managed to follow the vampires to the Holdout?'

'The footprints go in the precise direction of the scent that the vampires left behind fleeing the battlefield, and a pair of prints arrives up to the vampire which carried the note from Maluks. Not incidentally, the note was left on the ground, meaning someone has searched the vampire's corpse and then left the scrap on the ground.'

Serana was feeling a sense of bliss slowly making its way inside her, but could not understand exactly why. _Maybe it's him._ Azrael, since they had arrived there, had maintained his emotionless tone and the cold attitude, but she could tell that he was having fun. Solving riddles, observing, finding clues and working his way into the flow of time, finding the logical line that kept the events together; it seemed to be fun for him. It was far away from the fun a normal person would feel, but for once she thought she could relate. His words were faster and clearer, his movements sharper and more precise. She could almost hear him thinking. Such was the intensity of his mental activity. And someway, somehow, a slight amount of that euphoria was seeping into her. _And yet, he's more a riddle than ever. Will I ever know what goes on in his head?_

'We're following the trail they left behind then?'

'We are,' he said. His left hand went to his chest and then slithered past the shoulders and on his back, grazing the quiver, the longsword and the bow. 'And we'd best hurry,' he added, raising his head and turning towards the other side of the road, where the woods were. He blew a long whistle.

 _Who is he calling?_ she wondered, although the question already had a very probable answer. _Shadowmere, of course, but I've never heard him calling her with a whistle._ Normally, they were the ones who walked back where he had left her, because it didn't usually matter if they spent a few more minutes backtracking and returning to where Azrael had left the mare. In her favor, it had to be mentioned that in all the times Serana had seen her left somewhere, she had never trotted too far away from that place, and it was often quite easy to find her again. _I've never seen him bind her,_ she thought, but the reason was simple. _He mentioned her strength, and I can believe him. She could probably rip the tree she'd tied to off, together with the roots._ Leaving her free opened the possibility to call her at will which, again, they usually didn't do.

This once, however, time really seemed to be at the essence. _And I wonder why._ The Dawnguard would not kill the Priest, that didn't seem what they would do. _They would interrogate him and ask what rumors he heard exactly, but no more. They wouldn't go as far as killing an innocent man._ They had bloodied their hands a little more than mere vampire hunts required in the near past, or so the populace claimed. However, if the main source of rumors was indeed the city if Riften, and if Riften was indeed controlled by Azrael to some degree, she could not trust those venomous rumors to be a perfect representation of the reality of facts. All considered, she didn't believe they would kill the Priest. _However, what's his prediction?_ she wondered. _Does he think the Dawnguard won, or the ones led by Maluks?_ She could not now, and didn't even try to guess.

If the vampires could defeat the rescue group of undead hunters and successfully complete the nabbing of the Priest, than the situations changed slightly. _What will he do in that case? Will he kill them and pretend he was the one who found the Priest?_ Her attempts at justifying her trust for him all ended up failing. She didn't know his angle, didn't know his goal and didn't even know what he planned to do with the Priest, once he was in his hands. _What if my father has given him further details about the Scroll? If he steals it and attempts to… thwart the prophecy, what do I do?_ She had chosen to trust him, but in truth she had not chosen which side of the barricade she was on. _Well, you can't really take sides if you don't know the warring factions,_ she thought, efficaciously lifting some of her inner tension. She just felt like she could trust him, but she didn't know anything more.

'Serana.' Azrael stood beside her, and he had neared a little while she was thinking. He was exactly in line with her, in front of her if seeing it from the direction from which Shadowmere was most likely to appear. 'She's going to come here swiftly, and won't stop.'

'What, wait,' she said, turning towards him, 'do you mean we have to jump on her back while she's running past?' The sound of the hooves stamping the dirt and the undergrowth behind them informed her that, if that had been the case, it was too far away in time.

'Accurate. Now turn.'

The time during which the sound closed in was squeezed together, and she could not tell if it was one or ten seconds, because the tension at the prospect of having to take that leap was keeping her still. When the red eyes of the mare appeared in between the leaves, she legs began to quake and readying for the jump. The sound of the undergrowth being crushed was very close, and the moving long shadows bordered the rim of the forest. She was right there, behind those bushes.

Shadowmere's frame ran them by. Serana she could only trace the movement of her hand grabbing the side of the beast and her legs springing upwards, while her other hand moved above to go and grab the back of the mare on the spine. She could not see anything, because all of her focus was being directed on the movements. One last tug brought her up enough to extend her right leg beyond the beast's back. Her hands moved quickly, moving forward and grasping the first thing they came in contact with, something cold and hard at the touch.

A few moments went by before her senses returned to their normal level of functioning. Her sight cleared after a while, reconstructing the colors of the twilight and the shapes of the terrain around them. Most of all, it put together Azrael's black cloak, which was what filled most of her field of vision. She noticed that her hands had instinctively grabbed his armor on the waistline. After a while she heard the sound of Shadowmere's hooves hitting the ground, and the jolting also became apparent to her soon after. Something that she felt very early on in the recovery but that came to her awareness only later, was the strong smell that the vampires had left behind. She could still feel it clearly, and Azrael could too, probably.

She allowed herself to relax, now that the situation was very much familiar again. The bumping underneath them, the rush of air on their sides and Azrael's frame in front of her where the most common sight in their days of travel. _We've only known each other for a few weeks, but it feels like it's a lifetime._ They had all been difficult weeks, so they did count for intensity, but she had never really had that feeling of knowing someone so well. _Especially since I know almost nothing of him, still._ In a way, his consistency in being intangible made him familiar. He was the one who is always elusive, who always managed to stir her feelings. There was a regularity in that, which made that contradiction credible in some ways.

Not only that, but they had their habits and their rules in that relationship. That came to her mind because previously they had to interrupt something he was telling her about Elisif, and he said something specific. _We'll continue as soon as we're on horseback again._ For once, he had not thought that the next time they'd be on horseback could be something of the sort, and right now she had a half-mind to call in that imprecision. Azrael wasn't one to play games, and he stood by what he meant with his words, not his exact wording. _He could answer me right now, though._ He did have the skill to shift his focus very fast from one thing to another without hindering his concentration.

 _Fine, I'll ask,_ she thought, pursing her lips. It was never easy to ask him a question, or to start talking to him at all. Most of the time the silence he kept was a very clear clue to not disturb him, and she always went through the same emotional turmoil when thinking of how to frame and work the inquiry and whether it was wise or not to disturb him. _You'd think it would get easier with the passing of time, but it doesn't. Not noticeably, anyway._ Two times she opened her mouth and two times she thought over it again. _I wonder if he senses that I'm so tense._ It would not be the first time he would incite her to speak even when she had not said a word about asking him something.

'Azrael,' she said, shifting to the side barely in time to avoid a tree branch from hitting her shoulder. 'You were not finished telling me about Elisif. What happened after that counsel you spoke of?'

'I'll have to keep it brief.' Something, anything, even a scoff would have made him at least a little closer to normal. But he didn't do any such thing. 'After that, we spent a few days completely alone. At the end of those, we decided to amicably part ways, but I wanted to do a final favor to her. I contacted everyone in Solitude I could, and asked if they had any work that I could twist enough to strengthen Elisif's position. I did three things. One of them was reintroducing the event we witnessed yesterday.'

'And the others?'

'I eradicated a cult that had its roots near to the city and that was planning a less than polite plan to overthrow the capital. I tied up all loose ends of this one. I had noticed before that a member of her court, one of her most trusted advisors, was actually a mole of that cult. I killed her, making it look like suicide. The other being that I slew a Daedric minion that had made his lair near the city.'

'You've killed a lot in your life.'

The words disappeared in the noise of the gallop, with the sound of the hooves hitting the ground replacing the one of her words. Azrael was still, his eyes locked forward. 'Yes,' he said, slowly and exceedingly calmly.

'Why?'

'Impossible to say. I've killed in fear, killed in anger, killed for money and killed for fun.' He paused, waiting for them to pass by a fir which grazed the mare's saddle making sonorous hisses. 'The death of many people weights on my shoulders, but it's a burden I hardly feel.'

'And—'

'Not now,' he cut her off, tugging Shadowmere's mane to the side and making the mare turn abruptly. 'We're here.'

Having said that, Serana saw him moving. He bent his right leg and put both his hands on the mare's spine. He further retracted the leg and brought them both to the left, jumping off the back of the beast while the speed had barely gone down. Shadowmere slowed quickly, but Serana didn't wait for her to stop and followed the Dunmer right in tow with a leap. She directed her movements with care, but her preternatural reflexes were more than enough already to permit her a safe landing.

When she touched the ground, it was similar to when she had gotten on the mare's back before. It took a few moments to become aware of everything once again. When instincts took hold, they absorbed all the usable attention that her body and mind could provide, and there was almost none left to be aware of what was happening. _Well, it has always worked and will continue to,_ she told herself, turning around in Azrael's direction. He was standing a few feet away from her, and was readjusting the cloak on his shoulders. His eyes were fixed on the side of the mountain, and Serana looked as well. _Oh… There it is…_

Forebear's Holdout, it had to be. A small, unassuming hollow in the mountainside that was no doubt her destination. The scent of someone of her kin being near was very strong, albeit fading. _They could be all dead._ The scent of a vampire doesn't linger, but permeates the body for a while after death as the magic slowly wanes from the undead flesh. Those were the things her father's trackers said about finding dead members of the court, at least. _Well, if the scent was not enough, there's the huge bloodstain…_ she thought with a touch of irony, ridiculing herself for not having noticed it earlier. Right on the side of the entryway there was a red splatter, and what lay directly underneath looked to be a corpse, but not a vampire's one.

'Azrael's, that… A body, isn't it?' she asked, not stepping closer but waiting for him to do it first, for reasons she didn't understand herself.

'Yes,' he said absently, walking closer to the body. 'A Dawnguard light combatant. Burnt remains of a vampire, too, just beside him.'

'I see them,' she said, looking at the pile of ashes lying three feet away from the corpse, more or less. The late afternoon Sun had still been enough to incinerate the body to ashes. The only things still intact were some of the bones, mainly the ribcage and the pelvis, although the latter was broken and eroded. 'What happened here?'

'This vampire was standing guard,' Azrael said, nearing the pile of cinders and sweeping glances from the corpse to the entrance repeatedly. 'The Dawnguard squad attacked from a distance. Look, two ribs have been snapped in half and there are two broken crossbow bolt heads in the cinders,' he said, pointing down at the dead vampire's ashes. 'They injured him, and the bloodlust had the better of him. He managed to grab that one.' He pointed at the corpse of the combatant. 'He smashed his head against the wall, but then was culled down.' He cast a glance at the blood splatter itself. 'This happened less than an hour ago.'

Serana crossed her arms and smiled, the irony hiding the confusion. 'You guessed that just by looking at it? You can guess how old a blood stain is from how it looks?'

'No,' he said calmly, 'I guessed by sensing the strength of my urge to drink it.' He stepped forward, shoving the dead vampire's ribcage aside and gazing down at the pile of ashes once again before shifting his eyes again forwards and walking towards the entrance of the hollow. Serana watched his cloak flapping behind him, and the faint gust dispersing the vampire's ashes around. She was so absorbed in her thoughts that the small movement hypnotized her for a brief moment.

She came to as soon as the dust settled on the grass. She shook her head to snap herself completely awake, and then looked onwards. Azrael was already submerging himself in the darkness of the hollow, and she didn't want to lose sight of him. She could see in the dark, of course, but she couldn't see through rock without the use of spells. Spells that were only known to her through the monstrous side of her, which she would rather not show. _Quicken your steps then, princess,_ she told herself teasingly, feeling eerily ashamed by her own use of the word princess. It was what Azrael called her when he was mocking her. It was the first time ever she said that to herself. Nevertheless, she did quicken her steps and after passing by the pile of cinders herself she came very near to the pitch black darkness of the cave's entrance.

As she moved from the dim light of dusk to the utter black, she felt her eyes sizzling and adjusting to the blackness. She statred seeing the outlines of the rocks first, and then even the colors, even if dyed with that strange reddish hue. There was an unlit brazier ahead, now that she could see it, and Azrael was standing right beside it, grazing the outer rim with his hand. _Unlit, strange…_ she thought, most of all because there was a faint light coming from behind the first turn of the corridor, which meant there was another light source. _They might have tried to light this one too, but failed. I see some embers…_ There were indeed two pieces of coal who were heated, but it was probably so old that it had not caught fire as intended.

Azrael retracted his hand from the object, and her focus too moved elsewhere. She looked at him walking forward down the cavern, walking light behind him. _I don't know what he's going to do,_ she thought. _We are at a crossroads._ The thought was making her feel more tense, and the choking sensation was coming back, but she couldn't stop it arising. _Think. Gathered here, in this place, there's the Dawnguard, the Priest and me. He could just as well help them free the Priest, give me to them and receive a handsome reward for it. Isn't that what he does?_ The major problem was that it wasn't merely a theory, there were facts that could support it. _He almost sent me to them once. Now he has a second chance. What if he has arranged the Dawnguard freeing the Priest and meeting him here? He did go down to Riften to recover the Chalice, didn't he?_ It was the wrong moment for those doubts to arise, definitely, but if she was good in anything, it was afterthought. She figured things out when it was already too late.

And it didn't stop at betrayal. _What does he even mean to do here? Even if he fights the Dawnguard, he'll be the one who brought back the Priest, because Malkus is likely dead. What will he do with the influence he'll have over my father?_ The thing he was most enigmatic about, indubitably, were his aims. She could think of how much power he would gain inside the court after that, but she could not tell what he would to with it. Strength could only be measured on the object on which it was exerted, and right now she could not guess what that object would be. _Come now, I've known him for so long, how can I not make a guess?_ But it was harder than that, because if she had to wage, she would think that he wouldn't waste that power gained on small things like leverage in the court intrigues. No. He was more than ambitious. Ambitious people aimed for the highest target that could be seen, whereas he was something else. He aimed for the target so high that the others had not even noticed it. _So,_ she summed with venomous irony poisoning her thoughts, _the most likely scenario is something I cannot even imagine. That's reassuring._

That was if she really knew him and what she suspect to be his fundamental traits were indeed what she thought. If he was merely a facade for someone worst, than she could not guess, but she doubted it. _For once, my doubts work for me,_ she thought. Because the facts, her heart and gut feelings all pointed at him not being a fake. _Nobody could fake being such a heartless bastard all the time, and there would be far better disguises._ Moreover, part of what she had discussed with Elisif echoed in her reasoning. Part of his grim, unexplainable allure could only come from a real contact with him, and it drew upon the fact that he could lie and pretend really well, but only for short lengths of time. Indeed, nobody who could significantly change himself would be so cynical and nobody who could build his image around lies would choose to appear so mysterious.

Her thoughts were cut off as something solid hit her chest and held her on the spot. She quickly moved forwards with her torso and stepped back with her feet to avoid falling, and as she regained some semblance of awareness of her surroundings, a blinding light seemed to appear in front of her eyes. She turned away with a hiss of pain, feeling her pupils burn and her face heating up and aching. She soon made out what was the object that had stopped her in her tracks. It was Azrael's gauntlet.

'You lose yourself in thought quite often as of late,' he commented, bringing the arm back to his side and stepping forward. He was almost whispering, as if he didn't want to be heard, and not wrongly. There was a strong scent of fresh blood in the air.

Serana stepped back and put her hands on her face, trying to ignore the momentary pain. 'Look who's walking,' she murmured, a giggling note in her voice. 'You're always focused on something no matter the situation.'

'I don't bump blindly into braziers when I'm thinking,' he remarked emotionlessly, but Serana took the lonely fact that he had replied a small victory. She shook her head and ate back a silly smile that was shaping her lips, while also raising her head and looking forward.

 _Forebear's Holdout, behold._ She knew the place by name, it was her first time setting foot into it. She didn't know exactly where it was located, before. She knew it to be a small but complex headquarter used by a splinter cell of the Court that had kept in touch, but that was a very ling time ago. She could notice the signs of the traditional architecture, and a contraption which used the old magic was in the distance. _It's probably not too different from the one my mother used to seal me away._ It was a spherical magic barrier, it seemed. A shimmering light blue wall with greenish hues where the energy was stronger. The structure in the middle was complex and on multiple levels.

Speaking of multiple levels, every spot of the place was kept under close surveillance by warriors donning the same armor as the corpse outside. _Dawnguard members, they have to be._ There were some on the walls surrounding the center and some patrolling the various entryways into the central arena. _They have not noticed us, which is good._ Some were still, looking at the ground, and almost all of them were looking at corpses of vampires. _The battle didn't take place too far back in time. Also… S_ he remembered then that Azrael didn't know that she was familiar with the place.

'Azrael,' she whispered. 'There's something I should tell you. I know this place, it has been mentioned to me. It was built alongside the one where my mother sealed me away.'

'I know,' he said. 'The slabs are cut with the same kind of chisels, the overall shapes are similar and the arches have exactly the same angle. It wasn't a difficult leap.'

 _Why do I even bother telling him the things I notice?_ she thought, almost wanting to laugh. _The question has never been whether he has seen more than I have, but how many things more._ There was something about his very way of thinking that was alien, almost paranormal to her. The moment he had seen the room had had probably already planned how they would move in it and how they would approach the enemy. He had already found all possible escape routes and registered every tiny detail that could be stored in the back of his mind to be used further on in time. And all that happened in the timespan that was necessary to her to shush the variety of different emotions that emerged. He had the precision of one of those machines the Dwemer liked to build, but also the chaotic imagination that was unique to mortals. Combined, they made him into something immensely dangerous.

'All right,' she said. 'Any thoughts, then?'

He waited for a brief moment before saying anything, and his gaze kept darting everywhere very quickly. 'As I see it, it will be impossible to approach this head on. Not without taking risks I'm not willing to.'

'What do you mean?'

'Count,' he said, pointing towards the central ring of stone. 'There are at least twelve of them, not including the watch over there,' he said pointing to their left, 'and the Troll that is with him. Twelve in such a small area is too much. If we enter from there, we'll get overwhelmed. If we sneak from behind, we'll be against the wall. Even if we split and cause a distraction, they will be a lot to tackle.'

'You have handled far worse. Is it really this dangerous?'

He completely ignored the compliment and continued unfazed. 'These are not regular warriors. They're trained specifically to fight vampires and are equipped to do so. Their weapon are forged and infused with an old kind of magic, one that mimics the effect that the Sun has on a vampire's skin. Their armors too are build to avoid damage from our claws and fangs, and their shields are specifically resistant against the kind of magic the Volkihar use. Worse yet, I saw some researches delving into the magic they use for their weapons, meaning they could target us with beams drawn Aetherius that would be as harmful as a direct beam of light of the Sun at its zenith.' The black void hiding his face shifted clearly in her direction. 'I presume that's enough.'

She nodded. 'It is indeed,' she said, trying to contain her anxiety. 'So what do we do?'

'You stand guard,' he said, turning towards the entrance. 'I'm going back to town to get reinforcement.'

'Reinforcement?' she said, not fully understanding. 'There's no one that can help us, and nobody would be willing to fight against them.'

'They won't be willing.' Azrael's head turned in her direction slightly, and there was both a resigned and exasperated note in his otherwise even voice. 'We'll have to charm them, and we will send them forward. It should give us enough time to approach them and win the skirmish.'

'You…' she trailed off, lowering her voice because she had realized that she was almost screaming, but she could hardly avoid it. _This time he has crossed the line._ 'You're using them as fodder, by Oblivion. You can't let two innocents die just because we have to get to the Priest!'

'And if he falls in the wrong hands? How many will die then?'

 _I see what you're thinking, but I still can't understand it._ She once again resisted the impulse to cry out loud. 'It's not about numbers, Azrael. We just can't lead two innocents to the slaughter. I know it's what soldiers are for, but not on our watch. We can't.'

'You can't.'

'What does it matter?' she said, her head extending and getting closer to his hidden face. 'We're a team, and I will not allow you to kill them.'

Azrael's head shifted fully towards her this time, whereas it had previously only stiffened at the mention of them being a team. Serana felt his eyes looking and piercing hers. She felt the necessity to step back, but there was nowhere she could. Behind her was the wall, and on her left a three meters fall down into an underground brook. _I have crossed the line too, it would seem,_ she thought, bringing her head backwards from the slightly extended position. _We are a team, but we never make decisions together. If he doesn't want to risk, we'll do it his way. I never had a say in anything._ Her gaze was entangled by the simple sensation of his eyes being on her face.

After a short few moments, the Dunmer turned to the side, grabbing his cloak with one hand to avoid it from flapping and making too much noise. 'Fine,' he muttered.

Serana felt her own eyes opening wide in surprise. 'What did you say?'

'I said fine,' he replied coldly. 'Listen carefully,' he continued, leaving almost no time in between. 'I will clear out the main route and distract them. You cross the brook, climb up those outer walls and hide from the watches until I attack. When I do, avert attention from me. It is possible that we can cull them down before they retaliate in any lethal way.'

She searched for words, but he was already turning to the side. 'Azrael—'

'Not a word,' he whispered, bringing a hand to his chest and rummaging with his bandoliers. 'Refrain from doing anything stupid. The plan is dangerous enough as is. Go.'

Even by his standards, that was an abundantly clear communication of his intent of not being interested in a second debate. _Not that I wanted to, this plan suits me._ She actually wasn't sure why she had talked in the first place. It was merely habit. She could not picture herself hearing out his strategy and then walking off without a word more. _I had to say something_. Not the way he saw it, and the way was clearl enough. There was no purely logical way of justifying it, unless she had a doubt, which she didn't.

She turned to the opposite side, facing the cave. _Jump down this ledge,_ she thought, seeing that it was hardly more than a few feet high. _Cross the stream._ The water was shallow, but she should have skipped over it to avoid any kind of noise. Both sides of the rivulet were made of wet dirt, which muffled sound rather well. _Once there, climb up outer wall of the arena._ The fortifications were steep, but the slabs used left gaps in between each other that offered a secure grip for both her hand and feet, especially since she was so light. She looked once again over her track, and thought that it wasn't overly difficult. _And interestingly, or not at all so, I am a lot calmer when I'm executing one of his orders,_ she thought, stealing a brief glance back at Azrael.

The Dunmer had drawn a small flask out of the bandoliers in the meantime, and had untapped it using the sharp ends of his armored digits. He looked towards the center of the cave and on the whole top level of the wall, where the three watches were placed, to see if anyone was looking directly at them. _They are not,_ observed Serana, turning her head back as well. Azrael, having arrived to the same conclusion, brought his arm over the brazier and poured the flask's content on the flame. The fluid that flowed out of the small bottle was dense and black as tar, but as soon as it came in contact with the heat of the flames it seemed to liquefy. The drops crackled strangely when they touched the burning coals inside the fire, smothering it and leaving only dense clouds of smoke. Every new drop doused the flames more and more, and very quickly. When the last drops cascaded from the flask's rim, the fire was completely out and Serana could only see thanks to her vampiric eyesight and little more.

'Someone has put out the fire!' a voice yelled from across the cave. 'Weapons at the ready!'

 _And so it begins,_ Serana thought, leaping down the ledge. She felt suspended in the air for longer than she had anticipated, but then she connected with the ground exactly as she had thought. There was no need to distribute the weight, so she stuck the landing to avoid any unnecessary noise, and then she proceeded towards the brook, careful to stay on the parts of the ground that were wet with water and that made a soft and damp sound that could not have traveled very far. Above all, there were way louder noises coming from inside the arena, where hurried footsteps and the clanging of weapons could he heard rather clearly even from that depth in the terrain.

'Something moving!'

 _What?_ Serana wondered, doing a mental check but not imagining any part of Azrael's plan that involved them seeing him. _He hasn't told me his part of the plan, to be completely fair, but I doubt it would include being seen._ He surely looked like an infiltrator or an agent at the least, although he had been called an assassin time and time again. From the color of his armor to the way he hid his face clearly meant that he didn't really want to be see, so it made little sense that he had been spotted so easily. _Careful now,_ she thought, _do not step into the water by accident…_ Once she was sure of where she was putting her feet, she glanced behind.

There was indeed a figure moving in the dark. _Not very tall though, without a cloak._ That wasn't Azrael. The strangest thing about it was the strange glow that irradiated from it. There were white and light blue hues on its frame. _That looks familiar, but… Of course, a reanimated dead._ She had not seen any corpses, but there might have been one in the darkness. That was why Azrael had doused the flames, because he needed to reanimate the body. _Depending on what he does with it, it could range from smart to genius._ The body, whose garbs were clearly of a vampire, was stumbling forward in the darkness, his position given off only by the luminous signs of the magic.

She turned around, because the stream was coming up. She saw two rocks that were placed in a perfect spot, valued the distance and skipped from one to the other. The surface was wet and covered in moss, but she was light enough to not slip. The watercourse was shallow, full of minerals that shone weakly in the darkness. She didn't look at anything and kept running, landing on the opposite side of the stream with the necessary momentum to not slow down. The walls were still a distance away, but there wasn't any light and she was already out of the watches' sight. None of them would think to look down.

Another sound came, from the other end of the cave this time. On her left. The sound had surpassed the confused noise coming from inside the arena, and was a very familiar sound. _A blade piercing flesh._ Albeit confused, there had been a choked scream beforehand and gurgling sound afterwards, which had been lost in the echo of the sharpest of the three. 'A man down!' someone cried from atop of the fortification. More noises came from the other end of the cave. _That heavy breathing… A Troll? He did mention one, now that I think of it…_ The heavy breathing turned into a gurgling moan of pain very soon after. The choking scream the man had made was a recognizing blend of surprise and fear, but the beast's groan was of strong pain.

Serana turned to the other side, unable to resist the curiosity and wanting to know what was going on. _Where is… There._ It was the only place on that side of the cave that was somewhat illumined. _Yes, but… Is that…?_ As she made out the shapes, she recognized the frame of the reanimated vampire in front of the beast, slashing away at it with his claws. The Troll, however, was completely helpless. A torch, a lit torch, had been stuck directly into its mouth. _No way the reanimated vampire did it,_ she thought. _No revenant retains that level of cunning. It was Azrael, it must be._ The watchman he had just killed must had carried a torch. He had killed him while making it look like his revenant had done it, snitched the torch from his hand and thrust it in the Troll's mouth. _Well, definitely genius,_ she thought, feeling again that strange of bliss at the thought of a victory that belonged to both of them.

She turned to climb the wall. The price for turning around had been to slow down her run, so now she didn't have the impetus she thought she'd have, but it was plenty to walk a few steps vertically on the wall and then gripping two fissures with her hands. She let her legs dangle twice before she searched for a grip for them, too. The stone slabs were old and some cracked, but the design of the structure made it impossible for any of them to form wide enough cracks for her to use. _Which is a disadvantage, but also means no rocks will fly on my head without me noticing._ There was a new sound, again of a blade cutting flesh, but this time it was different. It was shorter and much smoother.

'Hold on to your bolts!' a deep and sonorous voice said from the other side of the cave. It was Azrael's voice, unmistakably. The raspy note and the intonation left no doubt.

'Halt! Do not shoot!' screamed another one from atop the walls. 'It's the Dragonborn!'

Serana was half-way across a step up the wall, but she froze. Her palm touched the smooth surface of the slab and her foot fell back on the fissure it previously occupied. _What in Oblivion?_ She turned around to look. Her eyes looked over the section where the Troll was, and she saw Azrael at the rim of that area. _He's walking. He's really going up to them._ She looked up. There were only two or three yards left, and then she would be on the highest level of the walls. _What if I am walking right into a trap? Why did he reveal himself to them?_ She could not decide what to do. _I could descend this and flee, but I'd be leaving him alone._ She could also stick to the plan. _But if he's betraying me, I'll walk right into my enemy's hands._ It was a decision that she didn't feel like she could take. She needed to decide whether to trust him or not.

As usual, the thoughts initially bubbled to the surface only to storm her mind a short moment after. _He always meant to betray you. You remember in Solitude, when he stood so silent when Elisif said that a Dawnguard platoon was coming out way?_ Sure he could have been surprised to know it or concerned about having to deal with them, but maybe he was merely content to know it. Maybe he was the one who had staged their arrival. And now, the crowning moment in their collaboration, he consigned them the most precious thing he could. Both her, and the Elder Scroll. _I have not trusted my father and I have opted for bring it with me._ As always, it was safely tied to Shadowmere's saddle. _He will now give me in and give the Scroll to them afterwards. They will decipher it and everything will be in ruins._ It made sense. Perhaps it wasn't the most likely thing, but she didn't care. As long as it made sense, that option would harrow her mind.

The exact opposite could have been true as well. _Maybe he has slipped up, and he's improvising. Or maybe this was part of his plan all along?_ He had asked her to avert attention from him, which could have been an effective approach. After all, the vampire who had just killed their watch and the Troll was dead, and Azrael had shown himself slaying the vampire. They trusted him and would let their guards down, so they would be completely confused upon being backstabbed. Using that confusion, he would attack them too and sow enough madness to win before even fighting. _It sounds like him, a lot. But the other option does, too. He is always playing, always manipulating. But who is he manipulating this time? My enemies or me?_

'Dragonborn,' said a voice, a different voice from the one of the sentries. 'I'm Vanik, leader of this expedition. Thank you for killing that fiend for us. What do you seek here?'

'I followed the trail left by you and your men,' Azrael said, with his normal unemotional and deep tone. 'I thought I might have been of help in storming this subterranean stronghold, but it seems you were faster than I anticipated.'

'Curses,' said the man, but the tone was vital and almost jovial, 'had I known, I'd have waited for you. I lost seven men here, and that was loss we could not afford. I only hope it was worth it.'

'I heard the rumors surrounding the Moth Priest.'

'It's true, he's right there, imprisoned in some kind of arcane device. I think I have found a way to free him, but he's been turned already. We were devising a plan to incapacitate him without injuring him. We will need him strong enough to make the journey back home, or to Fort Dawnguard.'

'Why do you need him?'

'He was the one who contacted us. Rumors of an Elder Scrolls being found spread all across the order of the Priests, but they suspected it might have something do with more sinister machinations. Once arrived in Bruma, the Priest sent us a messenger, asking us to meet him near Solitude. We were intrigued, and decide to investigate, see if the vampires were behind all of this. And Isran was right this once, they indeed were. I could hardly believe it. He wasn't very specific in his missives though, so we'd like to make some questions ourselves, but he won't answer any in this state. Not even under torture.'

'I see. And what other things have you gathered about the vampires?'

'Well…' said Vanik, 'Isran was quite angry when you didn't return, but we assured him it would have been for a good reason. Even he agreed that it might have been because you were on a good trail. Were we right?'

'You were. Go on.'

'After that, we just had a few scouts out gathering rumors and information. We have not made extraordinary progress, so this expedition to meet the Moth Priest was pure gold in our eyes. It could finally make things clearer, give us a glimpse of what the vampires might be planning. Because, and this doesn't take anything to guess, if there's a Scroll in it, it's some very big. But you surely have a lot more knowledge than we have, so please, tell us.'

'I'll tell you all on the way back. I will follow you to Fort Dawnguard and devise any further plans with Isran. Before you prepare to leave this place, I have a few more questions.'

 _What game are you playing, Azrael?_ He might have been waiting for her to climb up, or he couldn't have attacked them without being outnumbered. _But what if he's saying the truth? He's putting me into a trap. There's probably two more of them waiting by the entrance that will block me if I try to get out._ And through the impasse, there was a flame burning. She felt it in her limbs. _No matter, I will not let you betray me. You remember my promise. You won't forget me._ But what to do? They were there talking, but what else were they doing? _I need to see._ There was only a few yards left. She threw her arm towards the next slab and grabbed it, hearing Vanik's voice in the background but not even trying to focus on it. _Azrael interest me. You can go to Oblivion._

Only a few slabs remained. She climbed all of them quickly, the boiling feeling of her distrust and anger melding with her inner violence and lending her their strength. Her long nails scratched the smooth stone, leaving shallow signs in them. In a few more motions, she reached the top. She dragged herself up. She cast a wide glance around her. _I'm behind everyone. I am safe here._ All the watches were turned in the opposite directions. She slowly rose to her feet, feeling the solid rock underneath her feet, and looked towards Azrael. He and the Dawnguard warrior were talking under the arch that led to the central arena.

'Indeed, Dragonborn, indeed. But the Dawnguard's primary goal is to protect the citizens of Skyrim from the vampires. Whatever happens while performing this duty—'

'Intruder!'

A wave of searing heat seemed to emerge from the ground. It coiled around her calves, spiraling its way upwards. The pain blocked her motions, and her forearms shook strongly and without her being able to stop it. Her mind became numbed by the pain and by a mortal fear. The heat she felt was the heat of a normal fire, that hurts and annoys but doesn't feel lethal until it is touched directly. It was another kind of heat completely, one that could kill if touched for too long. She knew the feeling. It was the feeling of the midday sun on her skin. Her whole body began to shake now.

'She's a vampire!'

Confused noises, a deep voice. 'Serana…'

Even among the noises and the numbness of the pain, she could hear a silence heavy as lead descend on the people standing down in the arena. She was distracted when the searing sunlight moved higher, to her waist, melting her skin away from her bones. She started to shake violently, trying to escape, but she felt paralyzed. Her lips opened and closed, and she couldn't tell if she was screaming or not.

'You know—'

' _Fo Krah Diin_!'

The pain ceased right along with the thundering sound. A gust of air came from below, strong enough to blow her off the wall if she had not been crouching on the ground, bent in two by the scorching throbbing throughout all of her body. Also from below, came a freezing breeze that blew flurries colder than ice itself towards her, which somewhat lessened the pain. However, her head was completely storming. He had done it again. He had used that magic. The feeling of the world itself being ripped open and mended was always there as he did that, and she always felt it.

Down in the arena, agonizing screams and choked shrieks of terror completely covered every other noise there might have been. Serana only briefly looked there before turning her back, and she saw white everywhere. Ice, splattered with blood, and a mountain of corpses pushed against the wall. She didn't stop her eyes turning and looked behind her, where the voice had come from before. Behind her was the man who had done all that hurt to her. _I will rip you to shreds, mortal._ However, as soon as she turned, surprise smothered her bloodlust. There was no one standing on the wall, but there was a corpse flying down the ledge of the wall. He was wearing a mage's tunic and had a splatter of blood below chin. The black vanes of an arrow emerged from his throat.

She turned sharply to the other side. The beast inside her was awake, and every thought, even emotion, was silent. Now all that mattered was surviving, and there was nothing drawing attention away from that. She was lucid, her mind clear and her limbs vibrating with forbidden strength. _He did not betray me,_ was the last thought that passed through her mind. Afterwards, she looked at the wall. She quickly made out the shape of two men facing her. Her hand went to the dagger's handle in the blink of an eye, the ethereal energies poured into her palms. _Come here and bleed for me._

She dashed forward towards the two. She had seen that none of the two had a shield and they were only holding an axe. One of the two wielded it with both hands. _What will you do now?_ The first was bending backwards, as if to backpedal, while the other was doing the exact opposite. The latter was holding his weapon in a defensive position, but she easily found a way around his guard. She brought the dagger closer to her torso and lowered her body, hoping to get low enough to stab in a sensitive spot. Only when she was in a good place did she thrust the small weapon.

The strike was successful. There was a thinner protection on the cuirass' side, and her dagger pierced it. The blade wasn't very long, but it had penetrated to the hilt thanks to the strength of her thrust. The man bent significantly on the stabbed side, bringing his free hand to the wound, and doing something stupid in doing so. Serana moved her hand away and freed the dagger from the flesh, cutting two of the combatant's fingers in its motion.

The scream arrived to her ears already diluted and shimmering in a thousand different sensations. It was more than a sound. It was a pleasant sensation that involved all the senses as if they were one. The taste of a mortal's fear, the smell of their terror, that scream was showing her everything. The sense of touch, as if often did in situations like those, permeated strongly her fingers and even her teeth. The muscles in her jaws were just starting their erratic pattern of movements, tensing and ready to bite. _Blood, so_ close. She could hear it pumping in their arteries, and she could sense it, hot and still fresh, coating her fingers.She raised her head and looked into the man's eyes, which were filled with pain and fear, for one last time.

She first lunged forward her right hand, grabbing the enemy's wrist before he was able to react. Her long and sharp nails incised the skin in multiple spots as she applied enough strength to shove the man's arm aside, leaving him completely open. Her hand needed no preparation to land a blow of sufficient strength, it was that easy. Her other hand darted in the direction of the throat, holding the dagger tight, and when the tip touched the flesh, the smell of blood only intensified. A last jerk on the wounded man's arm did it. She only meant to make him stumble down the wall, but her pull was instantaneously followed by the sound of bones snapping. Multiple ones. A smile, a cruel one, made its way onto her lips as she saw the dead man tumble down the side of the wall, although internally she regretted not being able to drink the last drop from him. _There's always the other one,_ she thought, turning her head sharply and focusing on the other one.

 _Afraid,_ she thought, sensing her smell even before her eyes could detect anything of importance. _Angry and disgusted._ He had clearly never seen that much blood before, and had not wished to see it. His face wasn't shaped in signs of fear, but he was afraid. _Good. They're always so delicious._ This time she'd have worked a bit more before dealing the final blow. She focused for a moment, and then a soothing cold pulsated in her left hand, and as she extended her arm she already felt the veil between Aetherius and their plane weakening and cracking.

From her palm emerged a freezing mist mixed with small crystals that surged towards the fighter, casting a faint cold on its immediate surroundings but a strong one on the impact area. The stream of ice hit the man across his torso, and briefly touched one of the armpits, which were less armored and more exposed to all sorts of weapons. Serana saw him flexing his arm, but not managing to move it very quickly. It was his dominant side, and even if gripping the axe with both hands as he was doing, that was still the side that would give the most strength. Not that he could have done anything else. His other hand was busy covering his face for now, which she had no intention to target seeing how well she could hit other places.

She felt a strong strike to her side. She didn't notice anything at first aside from the strength of the impact, which made her clench her palm. The ice to stop flowing from it. _A sound. I heard no sound._ She hadn't heard it, but strangely enough she could remember it. A sharp snap followed by a thud and the noice of something heavy cracking. _What was it?_ It had hit her on the side right on her waistline. She lowered her head to look, and the sight almost aroused a feeling surprise. The fletching of a very small arrow emerged from her waist. They had indeed tore through the armor and penetrated her skin, but she had felt hardly anything aside from the impact. However, the impact had played a role. She had stopped casting her spell and she had to control her sideward step to not tumbled down the wall herself. _The other one may be trying…_

She was hit again. It was her other side this time, but this time she definitely felt it. The blow did hardly anything, but came together with the cracking of the armor, and with it came a wave of searing pain. _Not again…_ she thought frantically, remembering the sensation. It was the same pain she had felt before, that the man in the mage tunic had inflicted on her. It was scorching and frightening, because it awoke fears that were rooted very deeply inside her. Only that touch had made her believe for a split second that she could dissolves into ashes. That hit, that soft tap, had hurt her as much as beam of direct sunlight. She reacted almost without being able to control herself, but the predatory instincts didn't fail her this once. Holding on to the dagger she thrust both hands forward towards the man's neck, knowing that his weapon was still lingering beside her wounded side. Her fingers encircled his throat in the blink of an eye and started pushing and closing in with all their strength. The side of the claw-line fingernails cut the skin, making drops of blood fall down. _Bleed for me,_ she thought, making the grip even stronger.

The fighter's eyes seemed about to surge out of their sockets from the way he was holding them out into the air. Serana only hesitated momentarily when the expression on the man's face transitioned quickly from the one of mortal dread, from one of resigned sadness to one of incredible anger. _Behave, lamb,_ she thought, grinning beastly in his direction, but it sorted no effect whatsoever. She noticed then that the watchman had dropped the axe and was bending his torso backwards. His leg raised faster than she could move, only because she didn't see the beginning of that movement.

She tumbled backwards, incapable of stopping anywhere safe that was before the edge of the wall's higher level. There was one last thing that she could do before falling. _A farewell gift._ She gave up trying to find her balance with her hands, instead choosing to continue her confused steps backwards and preparing for the free fall that would follow. Her hands went to her side, and she felt the ethereal energy she drew blistering and chancing. Right as she was about to fall, she brought her hands forward together. A sound booming sound akin to a thunder burst from her palms as a flash of violet light erupted from her hands, and she could only see her enemy being shoved backwards by the lightning spear just before her feet slipped off the edge.

She opened her arms, tensing every muscles and preparing for a sharp turn, while also enjoying the thrill of the plunge. The sensation of rush, the intensity and the sense of alertness of her inner instinct was something that was always welcome. It draw away from the flatness and the boredom of the rest of existence. All her attention focused on one thing, and she gave the necessary strength. She twirled in the air, and after that she was facing the ground, with her back towards the high ceiling of the cavern. Her limbs lowered, ready to land, and her eyes swept across the arena, picking up everything they could. They, however, stopped half-way through and focused on the center.

In the middle of the ring, Azrael's dark frame was moving. He was holding his sword with one hand and keeping it above him head. He had one of his knees bent against the ground and his head was facing down. _Focus on the landing,_ she said to herself, but she only momentarily did before looking his way again. Three enemies were facing him, all roughly in front of him. There was one with a big two-handed hammer that was swinging the weapon above his head, readying for a strong hit, while one of the other two held a smaller axe that he was swinging obstinately against the Dunmer's blade.

 _Azrael…_ She had forgotten about the landing, and so she was brought away from her thoughts only in precise moment when she could do nothing else than focus on that. She bent forward, but judged the angle hurriedly and imprecisely, having a sense of it before touching the ground but only realizing it once she did. She briefly lost track of her own position and movements, but she when looked around again she understood that she had not rolled the way she had intended. Her eyes, shifting around frantically, fell on Azrael yet again. While she wasn't looking, the man with the hammer had brought down the weapon on the Dunmer's back, flattening him on the ground. His cloak was tarnished with blood and it was torn in two places.

 _Azrael, no…_ She was on her knees too, but before she could walk any further she felt a hand grabbing her by the collar and dragging her backwards. The fingers were big and rough, she could clearly feel it on her skin. Her legs bent and she didn't move them around it time, ending up with her back towards the ground once more. 'Got you, fiend,' said a gurgling voice behind her. She almost didn't care, because she was still looking in Azrael's direction. The man with the hammer had just struck a second blow on him, and he was still flat on the ground. Her eyes darted to the side, where his sword rested. It was a good distance away from him, not close enough for him to grab it with his hand.

She looked at the man with the hammer. _I will kill you. I will rip you to shreds._ The sides of her field of vision were blurring and pulsing, her whole view being dyed with blood red. The man was tall and big. He was holding the hammer by his side and was looking down at Azrael, with a worried expression. He seemed desperate. _He has understood that he's a vampire,_ she realized. _Ever since they started fighting._ She looked at the Dunmer, who was still on the ground with the exception of his head. His hooded face was raised, and was directed towards the man with the hammer.

In the silence, a weak growling sound could very easily heard. Serana immediately found its source, which was Azrael himself. It had much in common with his voice, but it was very different as well. It wasn't cold and composed, but filled with anger. She looked at the man with the hammer, who was bringing his weapon behind him to prepare another strike. 'Hit him again!' he screamed desperately. By the time he had finished the sentence, his hands were above his head and he could strike the blow very soon. _Is it too late, though?_ Serana wondered.

Azrael's hands leapt upwards, pushing him above the ground enough to almost make him stable on his feet. Serana followed his movements barely, and doubted the others could. The Dunmer bent his knees, looked at the man for a split second and then dashed, putting his armored hands forward. His fingers coiled around the man's head, the palm pressing on the temples and the fingers grabbing him all the way to the cranium. At that point, Serana could hardly follow herself. He was moving slow enough for her to see, but too fast for her or anyone to understand clearly. The man's arms lowered and he dealt the hammer blow, but Azrael was too close to be hit and only took the wooden handle on the shoulder. It didn't seem to matter that much to him, however. He just pressed stronger on the man's temples, and only moments after the fighter's mouth twisted in a voiceless scream of unimaginable pain.

There was a sound, which was hearable by everybody before they could understand what they had just seen. It was a noise very few had ever heard. It was like the snapping of bones, only less sharp and more dull, deeper. Serana saw Azrael's hands relaxing and opening, covered in gore. The man's body dropped to the ground, and the mixed and mingled mass of his smashed in head dropped down on his corpse.

Serana felt the man that had grabbed her moving. 'Wha…' he muttered, but she didn't much care. Azrael had already dashed towards the other man, producing that rasping and growling sound again. It made even her shiver to the bone. His hand dashed lightning-fast on the side of the next man's armor, penetrating the side layer with the sharp ends of the digits and grasping it. A strong tug to the side and backwards ripped the chestplate away from the fighter, who had dropped his axe on the ground and was no completely defenseless. Serana's eyes followed the ripped plate of metal as if slid across the room for a couple of yards before going back to the struggle.

It was a scream that made her turn again, she realized afterwards. The Dawnguard fighter's face was disfigured, half by pain and half by fear. Azrael had done something similar to what he had done with the armor, but this time he had thrust his hands directly inside the man's flesh and was trying to pen his hands. _Is he…_ Serana wondered, but the thought dropped. She didn't focus on it. Her attention could only go to some many things, and the flow of the fight was what she was concerned with the most. Now, it seemed the man could no longer even scream. The Dunmer's fingers had gone deep in his flesh, and were pushing towards the sides.

A new sound, and one equally unknown as the one before. Familiar, but unknown in its specificity. Serana couldn't tell if she had batted her eyelids involuntarily or if she had immediately removed the image from her memory, but she could not see the precise moment in which the body of the man was split right in two. She could only remember the two bloodied halves falling on opposite sides, tumbling to the ground in a see of reddish life lymph. She also felt the shaking of the man holding her, who almost brought his hand away from her collar, but did not see the moment in which the man had been torn in two.

Azrael turned in her direction. She immediately felt a series of shivers running through her body, but he didn't move in her direction. His hand only flashed briefly with a green light, which rushed slightly above her head. The moment it did, she felt the grip of the man holding her becoming at once tighter and less precise. _Paralysis,_ she thought, recognizing the kind of light and the effect it had. She thrust her neck away from the man's grip. _I don't have a weapon._

She turned to look at her paralyzed aggressor, who lay on the ground. She looked for anything that could kill him quickly, and there was his axe lying right beside him. _He must have dropped it when he grabbed me._ She brought her hand toward the grip and her fingers closed on it without her needing to even think it. Her other hand grabbed the handle just underneath the axe's blade. She noticed only then that he he hadn't dropped the weapon at all. His other hand was missing, sliced away recently. He had only managed to seal the severed blood vessels with healing magic, but not much more. She raised it and position the blade barely above the man's throat, braced herself and pushed down.

She let go of the axe as she saw the first drop of blood emerging from the man's severed throat, wanting to look back to see what Azrael was doing. There was one last man standing. Once again, she hadn't heard any sounds, but she remembered them. It was a common thing when her fighting instincts took hold, remembering and acting upon impulses that hadn't not reached her consciousness. She turned sharply, having in mind the deafening scream that could have only belonged to the Dawnguard man. It was shrill, clear, and it couldn't have been Azrael's in any way.

The scene she witnessed explained the cry abundantly. She only saw the Dunmer bring his head away from the man's throat, leaving a gaping hole in it and spitting blood and pieces of flesh. The dead man's body collapsed to the ground, moving in agonizing spasms. Blood began to pour out of the hollow in the throat. Azrael spat some of it on the corpse yet again.

 _It's over…_ she thought. The vibration in her body were decreasing in strength, and had been ever since she had plunged the axe in her last victim's throat. The fingers were not tingling as strongly, and the forearms had stopped shaking. The sense of touch had pulled back from her canine teeth, although it lingered somewhat in her palate. _There's still fresh blood around,_ a voice said in the back of her head. The tension was regressing from her legs. A creeping sensation of pain was flowing towards her side, where the bolt still was. Most significantly, her head was clearing. Thoughts were flowing in it again, filling it to the brim. Her eyesight had stopped pulsing and all the distress and fear she had felt were showing only now their aftermath.

 _And speaking of aftermath…_ The battlefield was a gruesome spectacle, even for someone like her. Even considering the space was small and amplified the sensation, it was still gruesome. _It's a sea of corpses._ She quickly counted nine corpses. _Makes sense.,_ she considered. _He said there were thirteen men here, minus the sentry and the Troll. That is twelve. Three were on the upper walls with me and another nine here._ Four of them were mangled and pushed against the wall, their bodies pierced and ripped to shreds. _The magic. The ice wave he summoned with the Voice at the beginning._ Four men dead meant he had faced against five adversaries. Two of them he had cut down while she wasn't looking. One lay a few feet away from her, with a cut that went from the right collarbone to the left cheek. _The fifth one is the one that I killed. The missing hand had been sliced off a few moments before._

She brought her hands down towards her waist, noticing how reluctantly they moved. She felt pain because of the bolt in her flesh, that was true, but she would feel more when she extracted it. She didn't care about consequences. There were no blood vessels that she could accidentally break and even snapped bone would have reformed with time. It was only the anticipation of the pain that made her uncomfortable. Nevertheless, she grabbed the shaft of the short projectile and closed her fingers around it. Pulling gradually, the bolt emerged almost intact from her flesh. _The tip mostly broke against my armor._ There were no broken pieces left in the wound. As the bolt became a smaller concern, she heard a distinct thought crossing her mind. _I messed up. He fixed it, and it nearly cost him his life._ She raised her gaze, searching for the Dunmer.

While she was looking away, Azrael had walked towards his sword and picked it up from the ground. He was facing her way. Aside from the cloak, the armor was also damaged on the shoulder and had a larger crack on the thing. The way it was damaged was particular, the result of a single blow. _The hammer,_ she thought. That was also the leg on which he was kneeling down when she had seen him upon landing. _He hit him there. It must have hurt._ Two of the bandoliers were darker, and one was cut open. _He keeps liquid there. If one of the was shattered, the leather must be wet. That's why they're darker._ He looked the same as ever, though. His posture was the same as every moment she saw him and the black void hiding his face prevented her from seeing anything. _His hand, though,_ she noticed. It was quavering.

'What did I tell you?' he said. Serana wanted to back away upon hearing him, but she could not. There was the wall behind her. 'What did I tell you about doing something stupid?' His voice was frosty, and not in the same way it was always. It was even more hollowed, but it was vibrating. The depth and the raspy note strengthened that pulse.

She looked back at him, motionless. _What do I tell him?_ Her tongue felt frozen inside her own mouth. She felt as if she could not move it, which was annoying on top of being humiliating. She thought, but there was a storm in her head. She wanted to shrink, to disappear. There was nothing that could have saved her from her own emotion. She could not even name them, because they were so much and so complex. Some were causing more physical discomfort than the bolt in her waist could, and her thoughts were fueling them relentlessly, giving her nowhere to hide from them.

'Vanik has a contraption hung to his belt.' The Dunmer turned towards the arch leading out of the ring, facing away from her. 'You'll be more familiar with it. Free the Priest and charm him.'

She lowered her head, even though he wasn't looking her way anymore. A sneaking feeling was emptying her chest once again leaving a gaping hole of pain and void. He had interrupted the flow of her feelings with his words, but they would arise again. Her throat felt closed, but she didn't need air to speak. 'Where will I find you?' she muttered hesitantly.

'I'll be outside.' He wound his fingers around the grip of longsword and twirled it by his side, grabbing it reversely. He brought it towards his back, hanging it in its place on the series of hooks that made up the back portion of the leather strap that served to hold the bandoliers on the chest. His cloak flapped languidly behind him as he strode away.

* * *

A/N: Excuse the gruesomeness, it was all for the sake of proving a point. Jokes aside, I hope you've enjoyed that battle scene. There hadn't been one in a long time.


	20. Chapter XIX: Cold Caress

Chapter XIX: _Cold Caress_

* * *

Despite a large amount of the frustration around her being fake, Serana had not felt so different from everyone else for a very long time. She could not see another single person in the room that wasn't showing signs of distress or irritation. _And if, like me, they don't feel any, they had better hide their satisfaction._ Since the voice of the Moth Priest had ceased echoing in the room, the low whispers and the buzz had taken its place quickly. _Some may be indifferent, but there are those who are truly preoccupied._ They could be recognized easily because their gazes often lingered on her father's face.

Harkon stood right in front of the long table at the other end of the hall, his chin close to his chest and his hands folded behind his back. His lips were shut tight, the thin skin on the cheekbones stretched almost to the point of showing the white of the bone under it. Everybody there had known him for at least a few hundred years, and they knew extremely well that, in spite of his mildly cross appearance, he was incandescent. _I can understand someone being worried of him exploding at any moment. I certainly am._ There were few things he cared more about than his plan. _Actually, it is the single thing he cares most about. No exceptions._ Being so close to his goal and then failing to attain it immediately must had been quite a heavy hit.

'My lady,' uttered the Moth Priest by her side. His voice was soft, and ever since she had enthralled him it had taken on a honeyed, languid note. 'Why has everyone fallen so silent. Did I fail you?' His eyes were feverish with worry. It was somewhat eerie seeing such undiluted reactions on the face of such a seasoned man.

'No, not at all,' she answered, turning in his direction and giving him a gentle smile. 'You did you best tonight, and I'm grateful. The reason they're angry is in every way beyond your control. Your time will come to read the other Scrolls, but that time has not come yet.'

'Thank you, my lady,' he said, stepping back and timidly putting his folded hands on his lap. 'I was very worried.'

 _I'm sure you were,_ she thought with a sting of irony. She could feel the tension in the air taking its toll on her nerves, because now she too felt very anxious. The tense faces and her father's angered visage on the other end of the hall surrounded her, as if staring at her continuously. On the other hand, the more they were worried the more she was cruelly happy. _This is a great obstacle. One of the two Scrolls is unknown even to him, and the other…_ Her train of thought stopped gradually. _Actually, where is the other? Did my mother take it?_ Even if she hadn't, she would definitely know where it was.

The images of their escape from Castle Volkihar flashed into her mind. The day her mother had decided to flee was the exact day her father had found the second Scroll. They fled before he could have anyone look at it. She had always believed it so, but now she had confirmation. _Why is he so crossed that this Scroll didn't reveal anything, if he had?_ Her mother and her had fled in the late afternoon, before any members of the court would dare go out and face the sunlight. They had two Scrolls. Serana carried one, and her mother another. _She's not dead, and my father never found her. It must be with her still, but… where?_

She had thought for so long about what she meant by, 'Someplace your father would never search'. It could mean so many different places, but she could narrow it down already. Her mother was smart, it was the thing everyone noticed upon seeing her, and she had a tendency to play riddles with everyone. _She played one with me, but it seems she was also playing one with my father. But what place is at once so obvious and impossible that someone as obsessed with my father would never search?_ She tried to focus as much as she could, despite the noise around her, and started listing all the possible alternatives. _First consider all solutions, then select the most likely,_ Azrael had told her once. She did just that.

 _What could hinder his research? What is someplace he would never search?_ Now that she thought of it, the list of his weaknesses was quite long. _Irritable, close-minded, arrogant, needing control._ She could trace two of three logical pathways that were useful. First, he had a strong sense of power over the things that were under his wing. However, finding his wife would surpass that. Likewise, he didn't not have the imagination her mother had, and it was possible that she found a hideout he had never even considered. Tied to that last point, he had quite an independent streak when looking for solutions to problems, and he might have missed on a court member's advice that could have proved valuable. He was fiery, and if her mother had thought of a place that required long, uninterrupted series of deductions to guess, she was safer than anyone could imagine at first.

 _However,_ she thought, her gaze shifting slowly to her father's left, _I do know someone who is capable of that._ A long, uninterrupted series of deductions. _I do indeed._ At Harkon's side, Azrael's frame stood straight. He kept his arms crossed against his chest, his hooded face was turned in her father's direction and was perfectly still. _He has approached him while he was that angry,_ she thought. _He either knows him very little or is insane. And on second thought, the latter is more probable._ She stepped closer, listening intently. Her father was moving his lips slowly, and she was dying to hear what the tow of them were saying.

'And the other,' he was saying, 'as of the last time I heard of it, was lying in the bowels of a Dwemer ruin. It seems our work is not yet done, but I have waited this long, and we are so very close now. I can wait a bit longer.'

'You will wait significantly less than you expect, my Lord.'

Serana almost forgot that her father was there for a moment. Her eyes shot up towards Azrael's hood, instinctively, even thought there was nothing at all she could see from the back of the cowl. _And here we go again…_ she thought, and despite the exhausted tone that her words had in her head, she was a shard of icy fear rising in her body and gripping her strongly, almost choking her. _Not a week ago he was seemingly helping the Dawnguard, and now he's volunteering to help my father._ She could see no connection, not the smallest one, in the things he was doing. Seen from the outside, they appeared completely left to chance. _Which is the pinnacle of manipulation. Following a plan so precise and carefully crafted that nobody has any clue of what to expect._

'Truly?' her father said, as surprised as she was but hiding it a lot better, 'and how soon do you think you can bring me my Scrolls, Azrael?'

'In a fortnight.'

Serana felt the same choking sensation as before, but she forced herself to focus on her father. Harkon had simply raised an eyebrow, but he seemed significantly calmer now. 'It's an arrogant claim,' he said, 'finding in two, short weeks what I have been unable to find for millennia. But you have proven able to do things impossible to others. I will give you this one chance. Search the Scrolls. If you keep your word, than It shall be immensely grateful. If it takes twice that time, I will still be impressed. If not, you shall still search the Scrolls until the end of your days.'

 _In a fortnight?_ As it often did, her mind split in two branches of reasoning. A factual one and an emotional one. On the one hand, she wondered how close he thought the Scrolls actually were. _He shouldn't even know where they are, in truth._ Even considering he did know, two weeks was hardly enough to cover less than half of Skyrim and back again, considering he had Shadowmere. _And both of them? How does he think it possible?_ There wasn't even enough time to send letters and instruct someone else to fetch the artifact for him. _For once, I agree with my father. That's an arrogant claim. But how many times did I think he had crossed the line, and he hadn't?_ On that, Elisif was definitely right. There was no end to the surprises he had in store.

The other branch of reasoning was a lot more chaotic and unorganized. _If he manages to recover them…_ Images of possible help, betrayal and all the possible outcomes of the mess they were in all panned in front of her very eyes, from the plausible ones to the more outlandish ones. At once she saw Castle Volkihar conquered by the Dawnguard and the Dawnguard destroyed by the Volkihar, with him as their leader in her father's place. _What is he planning?_ The question hammered her mind, mixed with the guilt. _That last time I mistrusted him, I almost got both of us killed._ Sometimes, the two lines of reasoning intertwined, wondering where he wanted to go next. _As if you could figure it out on your own…_ a voice said in the back of her mind.

An eerie feeling drew her out of her preoccupations. As he eyesight focused, she found herself staring forward, and quite precisely in Azrael's direction. She quickly tried to understand what had happened. _I thought… I thought I would hear him say something before he took his leave from my father._ His voice was the cue she was expecting, but that hadn't come. _So he left my father's side wordlessly, and…_ He had stepped forward, towards the other and of the hall, but at some point he had fund her looking fixedly at him. She was thankful once again for being unable to blush. Azrael was looking her way too, with a strange intensity in his eyes.

The Dunmer changed direction and moved closer to her, not moving his gaze away. Every time she noticed the lack of noise made by his footsteps, she was caught off guard. His imposing presence and the material that made up the external protection of his suit of armor suggested heavy, metallic footsteps, but that wasn't the case. He moved without making a single sound. In noticing this, she had to focus back on her senses once again, and found Azrael closer still.

'Pardon me,' Serana murmured, unable to stop herself lowering her eyes. 'I was just…' she said, trailed off.

'Lost in thought,' he completed, in an even tone. 'I know.'

She raised her eyes, not knowing exactly what expression was on her face. She felt so many things at once that she could hardly keep track of all of them herself. She looked for one more moment at the black void hiding his face. _We pay so much attention to a person's face, but in the end it means very little._ She almost didn't mind never having seen it, because that had not stopped her from associating endless different meanings to that blackness that was now so familiar. She realized that she had stopped trying to image how he looked like under the hood by that time. _Who knows,_ she thought, _perhaps now that I no longer care, he will know there is no danger and lower that cowl._

'I imagine,' Azrael continued, 'you want to talk.'

'No, it's nothing—' She cut herself off right before finishing the sentence, and this once the conditioned instinct was stronger than her normal way of behaving. _It happened in Solitude twice. Never again,_ she thought, recollecting her thoughts and batting her eyelids. 'I meant yes, sorry.' She felt a shy smile creeping on her lips. 'I think there is something important we should discuss.'

He tilted his head in the direction of the door leading to the wharf. 'Outside,' he said. 'There's too many avid pairs of ears in this room.'

As he finished, he turned towards the set of stairs leading upwards towards the portal. In turning, his cloak flapped upwards and waved for a moment above the armor. In that moment, her eyes fell on the cuirass, drawn by the two large cracks. The one of the shoulder and the one of the thigh. _He has fixed them as best as he could,_ she thought, seeing some of the pieces in different places than when she had seen them after the fight at the Holdout. She remembered the armor being bent inwards, probably grazing his flesh. He had bent those parts either straight or outwards to prevent it. _I don't doubt he will repair it at some point, but it doesn't look like he has much time now. He only has a fortnight._

The cloak soon fell back on the cracks and they disappeared from her view, but it had been enough to summon a storm of memories. She had not realized it during the fight when the bloodlust had its hold, but she had been so frightened when he had killed those free man so savagely. _He reminded me of my father…_ She had seen him kill with that brutality too, although never in a situation where his life was at stake. However, there was something about vampirism that made it different in every person. All vampires were extremely strong, but she had always relied more on her deceiving and nimble capabilities, whereas Azrael and her father clearly incarnated the more brutal, beastly side of the curse. He had not merely killed those men, he had massacred them. She had seen an enjoyment of the suffering of others in what he had done. _It's normal for a vampire, especially when his life is on the line, but still… It was fierce._ True to their dual nature, there was a monster hiding inside them, and Azrael had made it surface at the right time to save his life. _He uses every tool he has. He doesn't judge,_ she reminded herself.

She had almost failed to realize that she had made her few steps in his trail, following him. Sometimes, she really felt like his shadow, following him everywhere even without thinking. _Now that I think of it, I wonder how it feels to have me always standing by._ There was a blend of a deep desire for appreciation, but also a pure and unspoiled curiosity. When they had departed to find the Moth Priest, he could have left her behind, ignoring her request. Instead, he had agreed to have her behind. _Somehow, I make a difference._ He didn't mind having her around, and aside from the ball at Solitude he always asked her to follow him no matter where he went. As long as she had her hood on and behaved, instructions that she always followed, he seemed unworried by having her by his side. She truly was his shadow, by that time. Even now, when distracted, her first priority was following him right in tow.

 _Which makes out stance towards one another seem even more confusing._ When remembering the time they had inevitably spent together on horseback getting back from the Holdout, Azrael hadn't said anything about what Serana had done. He had remained completely silent. As much as she tried to remember, making way through the clouds of the guilt that had nibbled away at her for the vast majority of that journey home, she could not remember him saying a single word. When he wanted them to stop, he stopped himself. When, on the fifth day after the incident, she had finally found the courage to ask him something, he had kept quiet almost as if he had not heard her. _I don't even think I could live without saying a word for more than a few days. And he didn't for more than a week._

In between everything else that had gone on in the last few minutes, she had almost forgotten that the words he had heard him say to her father were the first she had heard since the battle. _I'll be outside,_ she remembered him saying just after the battle, and the sound of that still made her chill to the bone. _Although, he has talked to me now._ And he had done so like nothing had ever happened. _I cannot understand._ A dynamic nature was the norm with other people she knew. They grew angry, time passed and they gradually went back to normal. He had gone from utterly silent to normal in what seemed a few minutes, without any transition. To make matters worse, his normal way of behaving was quite enigmatic on its own. _I should consider myself lucky to bear its ambiguity. My father decided for himself what his normal demeanor means, and he might be wrong._ It didn't matter if that coldness was intentional or not, it was still a black canvas on which everyone could picture whatever they wanted. _Even though you have to consider that the canvas is framed in dark, ominous black._

The change in lights made her realize that they had passed the low arch that separated the hall from the anti-chamber with the gargoyle statues. She swept her gaze around, but there was no one there aside from Azrael and herself. The watchman wasn't there, even. The Sun had gone down three hours before, more or less, but the sky was clear and the stars were shining brightly when they had entered the castle. Now, their light glimmered weakly through red blood red stained glass.

She turned at the sound of the wings of the gate opening. Azrael was a few steps ahead of her, pushing the portal open. _He does enjoy his enhanced strength._ Their journey from Solitude and onwards had taught her something. Especially their investigation of the scene of the Moth Priest's abduction. She had seen him having a semblance of fun for the first time since she had met him. After that, she had managed to find a few smaller things that he probably did for personal enjoyment. They were very simple things, and they could be found simply by identifying which of the things he did were not painstakingly perfected. _The way of opening those gates that requires less effort is using the chains, but he opted to part the two wings himself._ There was a good chance he had done that for the sake of doing it.

That simple thing, finding a hint of liveliness, had added to the sense of familiarity that she had towards him. While in many respects she still thought that a machine would almost be closer to him than another person would, there was always something. Even though there was always a sense of misconnection in between the various things he did, she could see him having some small pleasures sometimes. In fact, it was in excellent accordance with his character. He was one who could analyze the same object to no end and still find something new. That ability to find new things everywhere could very likely translate to an enjoyment of very small things, because he was capable of making them count as much as great things. _What a wonderful and fascinating person he would be if he wasn't… Well, if he wasn't himself._ Or, as Elisif had claimed, he was indeed that person and she still had to see it. _I do hope she's right._

Azrael stopped drawing the gate's wings outward when they reached the length of his arm. He then placed a foot on the right side to keep the right wing in place and placed his left hand slightly above his head, across the space and against the left wing. There was a space large enough for Serana to pass through under his arm, which was clearly what he intended her to do. She walked through under his arm, flashing a weak smile his way as she walked beyond the gate.

'Now,' Azrael said, slowly, taking the hand away from the left wing and moving his foot away too. The portal began to close behind him, the hinges squeaking and the lower parts scratching against the ground. 'No one will disturb us now.'

Serana was still, looking at the closing gate with her chest muscles contracted as if she was holding her breath. The two wings closed shut with a hollow thud, which waked her from her sea of doubts. 'Why… Why did you let that close? We have no way to get back in now, not until they sent the watchman out again.'

He glanced to the side, to the parapet that bordered both sides of the arching road leading to the gate from the wharf. He stepped towards it, also casting a quick glimpse at the statue that linked the parapet itself to the castle wall. Placing a hand on the nose of the creature, he drew himself up and turned with his back towards the castle wall and his feet towards the sea. The bulwark was almost three feet wide, and so he could it on it comfortably, letting his cloak fall to his left. He sat with his back against the statue, letting his right leg dangle down the bulwark. He bent his head to the right and then to the left, cracking his neck. A habitual thing, that didn't really serve any purpose to a vampire. 'If every goes as I foresee,' he said, 'we shouldn't need to get back inside for a long time.' With slow movements, he brought his hands to his face, grabbing the rim of the hood with three fingers and pushing it backwards.

Serana felt her throat muscles move, this time trying to swallow even though there wasn't any saliva. At the same time, she felt her eyes sizzling intensely, casting more light on his face. His skin was pale as the snow, colorless, and barely grey. His mixed nature was clearly seeable in his features alone. The high cheekbones were elven, and the straight nose would have been perfectly aligned with the wide forehead hadn't his bushy eyebrows been so prominent. His chin was square. The left cheek was marked by a long, gaping scar that went all the way from the long and pointed ear to the dimple, just below the thin lips. It was barely visible under the full, thick black beard. His hair were long, falling over on his shoulders. They were black as coal, much like the hood they were usually hidden under. The strange gracefulness of an elf's face lingered strongly in all his features.

However, he was as much an elf as he was a vampire. Some signs weren't in plain sight. When he kept his mouth closed for instance, one wouldn't have noticed anything unusual. However, she could imagine his fangs blinking as soon as he started speaking. Other changes were indeed plain to see, mainly the eyes. They were sinister, baleful, terrifying. Two flaring vermillion abysses, in which igneous streams never stopped flowing. The pupils were black pits, slim ellipses that stretched vertically across the entire iris. The thick eyelashes gave his impenetrable, ice-cold gaze a mysterious intensity. All those elements, give or take, molded his expression. A glacial, unfeeling but intense expression.

'Princess?' His voice snapped Serana back into the present moment. 'What did you mean to tell me?' She was feeling strange, as if all of her attention had fled for a moment, captured by his visage. She didn't remember ever experiencing such a concentrated absorption of her focus all at once. She had been so captivated by that scrutiny that she had lost the perception of both space and time for a very brief moment. Her gaze raised quickly, but quivered in meeting directly the gaze of his cruel vermillion eyes instead of the familiar black void.

There was so much to see in that face. It had changed slightly from the moment he had first focused on it, and it took her a few moments to see it. His eyes had barely narrowed, the lines around them wrinkling. The mouth had stretched faintly, and the hint of a sneer played out on his lips. He was keeping his eyes firmly fixed in hers, almost to the point of being unsettling, but it had a meaning. He was trying to understand when what he was saying would have her full attention again. _It might be a while,_ she thought, not able to look away.

One of the strangest things was that the feeling of uncertainty that she had believed to be caused by his face being hidden was still there, and in full force. _The hood must be strictly a practical thing,_ she thought, since he wasn't any more communicative now that he had all of his facial features exposed. The faint frown that marked it wasn't him moving any muscle, it was his normal appearance. However, of all things, his eyes were the objects where her attention gravitated towards. _I wonder if it was like this before he was a vampire, as well._ It wasn't impossible, because of their size, but she couldn't know.

'I…' she said, bringing her eyes up one last time and remaining steadily locked with his. 'I thought I could help in regards to the location of one of the Scrolls.'

'Your father told me your mother made off with one, and not the one you carried on your back.'

'Yes, exactly,' she said, realizing he was as once again one step ahead of her. 'I'm sure she knows where it is, and if we're lucky she still has it herself. The problem is I have no idea where she went, but maybe you could help with that. She had a passion for riddles, and one of those is all I've got to go on at this time.'

Azrael's eyes seemed to brighten softly at the mention of a riddle, but she wasn't sure if it was true or just her imagination. Nothing else on his face had moved. 'Tell me,' he said.

'She said she would go somewhere safe. Somewhere my father would never search. She marked the wording of the latter of the two. Somewhere my father would never search. It was cryptic, yet she called attention to it. I have no idea why she said it, or what it…' She let go of her words, feeling a surge of hope rising in her chest.

Azrael's lips had stretched again, and this time there was faint but real sneer on them. Not unlike before, the eyes and the mouth were the main things that had moved visibly. 'I quite like your mother already,' he whispered deeply.

'What is that supposed to mean?'

'That I understood what she meant perfectly. The more you tell me about her, the more it seems that she doesn't think that differently from me. You can't quire realize it because you've probably only seen your mother building schemes, and you've only seen me unraveling one.'

The surge was becoming more and more powerful. She could hardly refrain herself from doing something silly. 'And you know where she's hiding, then?'

'Yes,' he said reflectively. 'In her chambers. In this very castle.'

 _The garden… Too peaceful._ The lonely thought that being right there in the castle was too stupid to be true was in turn overwhelmed by the amount of things that would have made sense if it were true. Her father had told her a few days before that he had never went back to her mother's quarters. _Of course, all the sentimentalism he manages to repress comes out in this forms. He searched everywhere, but not inside the castle._ The garden had probably went to ruin, since the entrance was completely barricaded by the amount of rubble that was in front of it. _Nobody knows the way I got in through the tunnels, not nobody has gone there in all this time…_

The joy of the discovery was only tempered by her mind's efforts to put all the pieces in their place now that she had the solution to the riddle, and by the amount of surprise she felt. _He actually did it. He guessed the thoughts of the wiliest woman I've ever known in moments, with only a few scraps of information about her._ Serana looked up at Azrael, but now the sneer had partly faded and there was close to nothing showing in his features. There didn't seem to be any pride or anything similar, and if there was, he kept it carefully concealed. There was still only the blistering intensity of his gaze, which meant too many things for her to understand all at once.

'How did you do it?' she asked, conscious that her face was probably a mask of joyful disbelief. 'How? You don't know her and there's only so much I have told you.'

'Both you and your father,' he said slowly, 'continuously stress her scheming side, but she didn't seem to be after personal gain and didn't seem a person consumed by vanity. Thereof, I could assume her being either a person guided by strong principles, or by a desire for an objective greater good. The former is improbable, because she accepted the turning of her entire family into vampires. Continuing with the latter, you mentioned she was a skilled alchemist. A learner then, perhaps a thinker, but one who enjoys putting her talents to use. From these elements emerges a person who is an acute observer of her surroundings because of a want or need to learn, and those traits together logically make for quite a tactless and private character, which fits with what you told me.' He looked at her more intensely for a moment. 'Was I right this far?'

'Yes…' she said pensively. 'Down to the smallest of details. Go on, please.'

'From what I know thus far, she also seems quite distant. She prefers to never let anything get to her, and to this end she structures knowledge in a very purposeful way. She probably knew your father just as well as she knew her potions. She knew that Deathbell extract mixed with pulverized Nightshade petals makes for the deadliest of poisons just as well as she knew that Harkon couldn't stand seeing anything belonged to her again after her departure. So she hid in the part of the castle that belonged to her.' His eyes flickered. 'I'd find it strange to physically find her there, but aside from that detail, I'm sure quite of my conclusions.'

'They…' she hesitated again. 'They make a lot of sense. You described her perfectly.' She shook her head, trying to rid herself of the storm of questions and trying to focus on the matter at hand. 'Anyway, I remembered something. The way to her quarters is blocked, and we can only get through by the garden, which is also blocked. We can get there without my father noticing though. There's an unused inlet use by the previous owners to bring supplies into the castle, and there's on old exit tunnel that connects with it. That should be a safe way in.'

'Good. I'll depart soon enough, but I should be back here by Midnight. We'll go there then.'

 _He's leaving,_ she thought. _He will be back very shortly, but he's leaving again. Who knows where he'll go._ She was assailed by her usual doubts, but this once there was also another option. _I could jus ask him._ Considering it made her shiver faintly, but when looking at him it was quite clear that he was of a fairly good disposition at the moment. _This may be the best moment._ She was unsure nonetheless, but she decided to try.

'Azrael…' she tensed her face muscles one last time to gather the willpower. 'If I may, what do you need to do while you're gone?'

His eyes were lost in the horizon now, looking in the direction of the northern coast of Skyrim. 'I need to send a letter. Shadowmere will take care of it, I just need to write it.' He paused, and his eyes moved back towards her, meeting hers once again. 'The mare will return in a fortnight, and will carry an Elder Scroll with her.'

It wasn't the first information big enough to force all of her viewpoint to shift and adjust, that evening. _He has one_ , she said to herself, having to spell the words in her head to keep herself from getting distracted. _He already has one of the two._ With that being the case, the promise he had made to her father seemed ever so slightly less insane than before. _Two weeks to search for one Scroll was a very short time still, unless…_ She considered what alternatives she could think of, in a manner of deliberate ambiguity that Azrael had indirectly taught her. _He did teach me to think, to a degree,_ she thought, but tried to discard it. It wasn't the time for introspection. There was a more pressing thing demanding her attention.

 _What if…_ she wondered, _he somehow already suspected the Scroll was here around the castle._ Her father had told him that the other Scrolls had been stolen by her mother, of that she was sure, but with what information had he risked asking that short of a timespan? _There was no way he could suspect the Scroll was here in the Castle before I told him my mother's riddle._ She couldn't decide between the two options. _Mastermind or insanity?_ The two went together to an extent, but Azrael's insanity was a very strange one to say the least. It never seemed a reckless kind of insanity, but a callous and calculating one. _He does indeed have some similarities with my mother,_ she thought.

Again, she mustered a good deal of courage and looked right at him. 'When you promised my father those Scrolls… I mean, you are helping him and you are assuring that he receives his help quite quickly. A fortnight is nothing to a vampire, especially one who has lived that long. I can't imagine you're helping him for the sake of it,' she said, and lowered her voice saying those words, distancing one from the other carefully and looking intently at his face to pick up any sings. He remained completely still, at which she felt safe to continue. 'However, I really don't get what you gain from doing that. Aside personal influence over him, but you wouldn't do something that difficult.'

'Your Moth Priest, Dexion,' he said evenly and cryptically. He would have surely explained further, but Serana was glad for that answer on its own, since that tone was his unaltered, slightly frosty one. It meant that she wasn't wrong and he was still on her side. 'Under your spell,' he continued, 'he read the first Elder Scroll he laid eyes on in all his life, without training and with all the internal turmoil caused by your presence. By tomorrow, his eyes will begin to weaken and in a few more hours he will have gone completely blind.'

 _Great,_ she thought, the irony covering the hint of guilt. _I've made a great man and a great scholar lose his dignity and his eyesight. Possibly his life, too._ Abducting the Moth Priest was something her father had ordered, and it had been a long time since she had done that. It was a task that reflected his brutality, one she would have rather not done. She had her doubts she would have been able to do it with a clear head, but in the moment she had done it, her mind had yet to stop feeling the crushing blame. The guilt for not knowing the consequences for Dexion and of not stopping him were accompanied by a faint feeling of contempt towards Azrael himself. _You knew, so why did you not tell me? You are as responsible as much as I am for this, maybe more._ But then again, calling him out on the harm he had done to others never really worked. _Just like my mother,_ she thought one again with an internal, sad laugh, _he cares for the bigger picture and the greater good, if there is any good meant in what he's doing._

She was also quite busy keeping up with all the mental steps Azrael had taken in designing his plan. He had let the Priest go blind for a reason, one might have been intuitively obvious to him but that she knew would take her a few moments deciphering. _The Priest reads the Scroll,_ she thought, _so my father thinks to have that solution in his bag and focuses on another problem._ Finding the Scroll, that was the priority. When the Scrolls were found, they would suddenly discover that the solution they took for granted was no longer available. _So it irritates my father… But what else?_

'And once we come back with the two Scrolls only to find the Priest blinded, my father will be frustrated and furious,' she said, almost thinking aloud. 'But I don't see how that helps us in any way.'

Azrael leered her way, but the mockery wasn't meant for her. It was more likely he was having fun at the thought of the people he would trick. 'In one way or another, I'll be able to sway your father into handing the matter to me. At that point, I will have the three Scrolls for myself.'

 _Just like that?_ Her efforts to keep everything hidden from her features was taking its toll, but she considered it worth it. _I can hardly believe him, but…_ His gaze, that intense stillness it had, suggested her that he wasn't lying. He seemed different, and that had never been good until then, but she really couldn't remember a time when she had seen him like this. _He has taken off his hood, for once. Maybe there has never been such a moment._ 'So what, we'll have the Scrolls for the two of us? What could we possibly do with three Elder Scrolls? Open a museum?'

'The Moth Priests in the Imperial City would sell their very lifeblood in exchange, for one,' he said pensively, but still with a mocking grin barely touching his lips. He was joking.

She didn't know what game he might have been playing, what were the untold rules or what were the things he was trying to get out of it, and she didn't care. She just wanted to play. 'A museum seems better. Imagine, a large hall with the three Scrolls in it,' she said stretching her arms forward to represent the length of the image that had emerged before her eyes. 'At the very end, a statue of you resting against a rock.'

'A statue would make me more recognizable then cautionary in my line of work.'

'But how worth it would it be?' she insisted, laughing. The last voices of reason telling her she was being carried away were being silenced one by one, and she hardly herd them by that point. 'I picture it… Stay there!' she told him, putting both hands on the parapet and jumping up on it. Her eyes went towards the side, trying to reconstruct clearly what she had imagined. However, she was distracted. She felt as if she had lost her balance and was falling forward, down the side of the parapet.

 _What in the…_ Her head darted to the exact spot where she felt the void beneath her foot, and she saw what had happened. She had not looked carefully, and she had placed her left boot in a crack in the stone and lowered it, thinking she'd find solid ground. _I won't fall,_ she thought, feeling a surge of energy but the tension diminishing. She raised her suspected foot and extended her hands backwards to grab the other side of the bulwark. Neither of her hands reached the stone.

She felt herself being pulled strongly and very quickly towards the castle walls. Her hands were close to one another behind her back, held in place by something cupping them. Something cold and hard to the touch. There was another point of pressure on her stomach, at the height of her waist. Quickened by the previous sense of danger, her eyes moved fast to the spot and she could make out the outlines of a hand. A gauntlet, black, barbed, which she recognized very well.

The pull didn't last long. When she stopped, she could feel her back against a solid surface. 'Careful,' Azrael said, but his voice came from above her rather than behind. She quickly reassessed the position of everything around her, trying to remember. The sea was in front of her now, the portal on the right.

 _I'm lying in his lap…_ she realized, feeling a strong impulse to move away. _You fell,_ she told herself. _Right in front of him._ He wasn't holding her hands any longer, but still kept his hand on her stomach. 'Sorry,' she said under her breath and hesitating, 'I'll go down.'

She moved, but the hand didn't move. 'Stay,' he said slowly. 'I don't mind.'

The contrast between the intensity of the feelings and the unnatural stillness of the body was distressing. _How many years has it been since my heart has beaten for real, and I'm still checking if it's racing or not. It would be, now._ So many things would be very different, but when the game was about trying not to show too much, an undead body did help. _Not that he wasn't guessed._ She moved her pupils up as far as she could, and she caught a glimpse of his vermillion eyes. _He sees mine, then, it I bet mine showed something amusing indeed._

As the momentary tension settled down, the bigger picture was coming back to her. Unlike usual scenarios, where a contextual view of events makes them look more normal, this was the contrary. _What is even happening, right now?_ She was positive he would be still keeping his distance, and yet there he was, grabbing her to avoid a free fall that she could have avoided anyway, and letting her rest her head on his chest. _The only way this could seem normal is if he stuck a dagger in my throat this very moment._ But he wouldn't. She knew well enough that he would not do it. _Still, it's… strange. Very strange._

She couldn't even tell what she was really feeling. _There's layers,_ she thought, after paying attention for a moment. There was a layer of strong suspicion and tension, covered by one of pleasure and enthusiasm, covered in turn by embarrassment. _That last one is making me numb,_ she understood. It was blocking her, preventing her from really feeling anything. She could think, but she could not feel. All the world only seemed to exist inside her head, as if a dream or a hallucination. _Embarrassment,_ she thought, remembering the one time Azrael had advised her to name and brand with the fire of the mind everything she wanted to understand.

It worked. She could feel again. _How much time has passed?_ Seconds, minutes. They all seemed the same. She could clearly sense the texture of Azrael's armor on her back. _And my head…_ That was lying on something softer. _A piece of the cloak._ The darkened sea and the starry sky, despite having been in front of her all this time, had been away from her notice. She glanced at Azrael's hand, still on her waist, sliding slowly as if caressing it. A cold caress. _How strange,_ she thought. _I think him selfish, but I am right? My priorities may be outside of myself, but my attention is nearly always directed inwardly. He's the opposite. His priorities are directed internally, but his attention externally. A selfishness of goals and one of attention._ She grinned.

While listening to those thoughts, something clicked. She recalled what Elisif had told her, and the whole conversation condensed in a few images that flashed in front of her eyes so rapidly that she hardly saw them. The meaning was clear, and she understood how much more she knew than the last time she had thought about it. 'Azrael,' she said, 'can we… talk about what happened at the Holdout?'

'Yes.'

She was taken aback, but quickly understood. _He has nothing to say then. Well, the situations is clear to him and he knows everything that transpired._ She didn't, and above all, she was the one who had made a choice. 'I wanted to apologize, first and foremost. I shouldn't have botched the plan, but… When I heard you say those things…'

'I was lying. I'm good at it.' He paused briefly, and the silence that fell was almost filled with the sound of his thoughts. 'However,' he continued, 'I should probably inform you on what I intend to do, next time.'

'It's my fault, I should have just done what you told me.'

'Blame…' he murmured. 'Such an easy solution. Don't be in a rush to blame anyone, especially yourself. Furthermore, I want a thinking individual by my side. A mindless executioner is of no use to me.'

'You do have a mind that is enough for two people at once, however.' She was looking forward, towards the sea, enthralled by the view. She neither wanted nor needed to look at him. Hearing was more than enough.

'Thank you, I suppose,' he said, tittering faintly. 'But nevertheless, you could never take my mind, use it to control your actions and expect it to work.'

'But how does it work, your mind? I cannot imagine what internal balance in which it fits.'

This time he scoffed silently. 'It's the first time I hear that question,' he whispered. 'It's a queer thing. I'm living in two worlds at once. A mental one and the real one. The latter is where everyone else seems to be living. The thing that connects them is my mind. I have lived for a very long time doing the wrong thing, which was dividing my time so that some would be spent caring for the real world and some for the mental world. A short time past, however, I have understood that there are some things that activate both. It's a dangerous path, and it makes for a ruthless traveler, but it's the one way to prevent my body from dying and my mind from rotting. There are very few moments when I feel alive, really alive.' His voice was changing, the intensity that was emerging from eyes was now permeating his tone. 'Usually, it's when I can destroy what stands in my way. Solving riddles is destroying the puzzle, thinking is destroying a problem and killing is destroying a life. The moment of the kill. That's when I feel alive.'

Serana recognized what she was feeling really well. Something begging her to move away, flee, get away from him and if possible kill him right there. But on the other side, she felt irresistibly drawn towards him. The sound. The sound of his voice was what carried that feeling. It was high-strung, completely emotionless but filled with energy. The fight between the need for closeness and the one for distance was making her freeze, leaving her unable to do anything. _But he confessed this,_ he thought, trying to put an end to it. _I knew something like this was true for him, and now he told me. That means I might be out of that picture, be somewhere else. I could exist outside of that pattern._

'There,' he said. His tone was very different now. It was dry, ironic, almost bitter. The raspy dunmeri accent made it even harsher. 'Now you know what kind of monster I am.'

'You're not a monster.'

'Am I not?' he said wryly. Serana could hear that his voice was taking on a slower rhythm and that it was going back to even and cold. 'Enough now. It sickens me to talk about myself. What about you? What kind of monster are you?'

Serana grinned widely, stretching the corners of her lips and baring her teeth. _What kind of monster am I?_ It had been too long since she had been allowed to feel wicked. 'I'm strange too, I think. I'm not unique like you are, I'm only unexplored. I'm a follower and I'm a rebel. I want all the good and the evil in the world to happen to everyone. I want to know the rules, but then I want to break them. I want to be brave, but when I am I never really find anything to do with my courage. I both love and hate myself, sometimes separately and some other simultaneously. I don't know what kind of monster I am, honestly.'

'Because you're not,' Azrael said reflectively, his voice empty of all feelings, a husk that merely reflected the cold landscape of his mind. 'You're a pendulum. You swing from one end of the other, rhythmically, as if that movement was out of your control despite requiring your energies to work.' His tone was getting slower, deeper. 'But you're tired of swinging, are you not?'

* * *

A/N: I apologize for the delay, but it was unavoidable. Regardless, here it is. For those who don't have notifications and want to keep up to date, the one week postponement doesn't change the schedule. There will be another chapter next week, as if this one had been published on time. There might be some more delays in near future, because re-reading older chapter and comparing them to newer ones I have personally noticed a slight drop in quality, something that I'm aiming to fix but that could require some more time.


	21. Chapter XX: Abyss Walkers

Chapter XX: _Abyss Walkers_

* * *

Serana slowed her pace down, noticing that Azrael was taking shorter steps and looking around. He turned in her direction, looking down the passageway they were coming from, and then cast a glance at his left side before shifting his gaze once again. Ahead this time. _He's not looking, he's trying to hear something._ She listened intently as well, trying to pick up anything. _Noises, but very confused._ Screeches, squeaking, nothing precise. _This place has been sitting here empty for a very long time._ 'Nothing around here,' she said. 'Unsurprisingly. I wonder if the rats found anything at all around here.'

'Careful with your assumptions,' Azrael whispered. He slowly raised his right arm and loosened the grip on the longsword's handle, bringing it above his head. He let the blade slide down his back, attaching it to the hooks. 'There are no rats here, true. But why is that?' he asked, rubbing his armored hands as if to clean them.

 _If he has called me out on them not finding anything to eat, then that must be wrong._ She looked around, remembering all those times when the answer was something so obvious she hadn't even paid attention to. There was nothing of interest around. _There are the plants…_ Deathbell and Nightshade blossoms were scattered all over the place, almost all of them completely exsiccated and lacking any smell. That wasn't a viable solution. _The rodents would just ignore the petals and search for something else_. She tried to remember when the mice had stopped trying to bite her ankles. _Some time ago, which means they avoid this whole area. That would mean an aura of some kind…_

A strange feeling of euphoria filled her from the inside. _Yes, of course…_ It was so obvious. Animals dislike the presence of any kind of conjuration magic, especially necromancy. _Still, there would need to be something very powerful to emit this kind of an aura._ That was only the first part of the existing problems with that assumption. The second was that Azrael had an idea, but he should not have known that her mother was dabbling with necromancy. _Well… Dabbling is not the word. She was an expert._ She raised her head, and met the black void beneath the hood. 'And how do you know that my mother was a necromancer? How?'

Azrael held her gaze for a moment before answering. He bent his head slightly to the right. 'I had an intuition. Thank you for confirming it,' he said, his tone quicker than normal and carrying an ironic note. He turned around and looked up, further on into the sloping tunnel. 'I was thinking of something else.'

Serana stepped forward and quickened her pace. _Something else? What?_ He had guessed her mother was into necromancy, but that wasn't the solution to the problem. Indeed, there was nothing that suggested the presence of an active spell nearby. _Of course; no spells. There is technically nothing suggesting the presence of magic at work here. But then…_ What else could be so powerful that animals didn't dare go near it? 'Enlighten me,' she said, chortling softly, 'what is driving the rodents away if not the magic?'

He glanced behind his own shoulders briefly, meeting her eyes for a moment. 'Do you really not know?' he asked, disappearing behind the corner.

'I don't,' she said, climbing two steps at a time to keep up. _Now you have intrigued me,_ she thought, peaking around the turn and spotting a closed wooden door at the end of it. 'My mother was into necromancy, it wasn't a secret. I mean, she taught me everything I know. That you might have understood by now. However, I really have no idea of what else could be driving away the animals. Ingredients? Some poison she made that still emits odors to this day?'

The Dunmer stopped in front of the wooden door. He looked at it, bending his head first to the left and then to the right. He brought a hand forward, following the points in which the wooden beams connected together with the sharp tip of the gauntlet's fingers. 'I carry a Daedric artifact with me. Azura's Star, we call it. It's vibrating slightly, as if something is interfering with it.' He glanced back her way once more. 'Your mother either experimented with the substance of Oblivion, or has struck a deal with a Daedric Prince directly. It doesn't really matter. Something that gives testimony to that pact is in the next room. That scares away more rats than a simple necromancy hex ever will.'

 _Oblivion…_ The initial hope was that her mother had told her and she had forgotten about it, however that had happened. _When we were out in the garden… Maybe sometime I was distracted and she told me…_ But no, she was rarely distracted when they went to the garden together. She was either watching her very closely or was completely lost in her own thoughts. Not that her mother talked a lot while she was among her plants. Judging by the amount of care Valerica had for them, Serana could have considered them her little sisters. _No… She never, ever mentioned having directly struck any pact with any Daedric entities. She just… Spoke to them. Oh mother… what have you done?_

'Serana.'

She shook her head, touching her temples with her fingertips and shutting her eyes for a moment. 'I'm coming,' she answered, and slowly made her way up the stairs. The door at the end was open, and Azrael had already stepped into the room that came immediately after the corridor. She put a hand on the doorknob, more out of need to have something to put her hand on than to keep the door open. She stepped in the room and looked up. As she did, she felt strong shivers shaking her limbs.

She looked for a moment at the huge mammoth skull on the right side, with still the tusks intact. Her eyes moved down to the bookshelves, and then darted elsewhere. Her gaze moved frantically around, not even looking at the room in general but running from specific objects to others, as if magnetized by her memories. _Souls gems, a lot._ Shelves full of ingredients, and many more things. The room had an elevated portion; she could see an arcane enchanter on the extreme left and a small alchemy workshop on the extreme right. There was also a piece of the elevation that stuck out onto the lower level, and there was something resembling a small brazier near the end.

 _Well, and of course…_ She looked down, at the circle in the center of the hall. _You couldn't walk in here and not notice it._ A large circle surrounded by candles, all unlit and with the wick drowned in the wax. The only word that popped into her mind for it was circle, but in truth it was a sequence of concentric rings, each one a little higher than the previous, if analyzing it from the center and outwards. _No necromancy device I have ever seen. Azrael is right again. It looks like a very advanced summoning circle._

'Look at this place,' she whispered, unable to keep her surprise inside for longer. 'It has to be it.' She stole a glance at Azrael, who looked extremely focused on his observations. _I wonder if he even heard me._ His head was moving in characteristic way, in very small but lightning-fast bursts of movement. _He's thinking._ 'We should take a look around; there has got to be something that will tell us where she's gone.'

'She kept records, I assume.'

 _Of curse, he's got that one figured out as well._ She caught herself smiling. 'Yes, she did. She was meticulous abut her research. If we can find her notes, we might also find some hints of where she's gone. She was planning something bigger than I thought.' She looked at the shelves, and images emerged from her memories. 'I remember her spending years to gather some of those components. Then there's this… Summoning circle. Maybe there's some notes on this.'

'It's not a summoning circle.'

Serana was looking on the elevation, searching for other rare ingredients that she could remember, but she turned towards Azrael immediately. _But those shapes… No, probably not._ She stole one last glance at the candles. 'What is it then?'

'It's a portal.'

 _So that is where she's gone…_ she thought, looking at the stone rings. They looked dead, completely inactive. Yet there was some kind of energy seeping from it, or so Azrael claimed. _I should trust him on that one. We may be creatures of Molag Bal, but I don't know a lot about Oblivion._ She looked at Azrael. _He knows. I don't know how, but he knows. He knows everything, or it looks like it._ In remembering how intently he had looked at the room and at how utterly unmoved he had been at the mention of the records, she could only guess he knew something already.

'Have you found anything?' she asked.

Azrael looked briefly her way, as if showing that he had understood the subtext. 'She's been away for a long time, four millennia isn't out of the question, but it wasn't meant to be this way. Look at the candles,' he said, pointing at the circle surrounding the stone rings. 'Slow burning, imbued with magic. The plan was to enter the portal and have the candles lit for long enough to come out, but something went wrong. She couldn't come back. It seems more likely that she fled into the portal rather than walked through it unhurriedly. She left a lot behind.'

'And where has she gone?'

Azrael turned around, towards the shelves on the side of the room opposite to the door. 'Purified Void Salts, cleansed with very special magic treatment.' He moved his head to the other end of the room, on the extreme left of the elevation. 'An entire bowl of soul gems fragments; black soul gem fragments. There are some more scattered around the room. That pillar,' he continued, pointing at the object that Serana had mistaken for a small brazier on the part of the elevation that stuck out. 'It's a vessel. Some more ingredients will be required to re-open the portal. I would guess she thought she had found a way to keep it open indefinitely, but miscalculated.'

 _How he does that…_ She pursed her lips and looked around, wondering what other things she had failed to notice. _Well, let's not forget that I'm the one who's missed four millennia of change._ Some things had definitely changed, but if Azrael was right, then her mother might have shared her same plight. _If she remained stuck for however long in the place where she went, the two of us are on the same boat._ She recollected her thoughts. She had better look for her mother's records and leave Azrael to his own scrutiny.

'Serana,' he said slowly and absently. 'Has your mother ever mentioned the Ideal Masters?'

The same kind of euphoria as before arose in her, but this time it was mixed with a hint of fear. _She did indeed… Yes, of course._ She had meddled with them, and had talked about them. Possibly to them, even. It hadn't occurred to her because she always associated it more with necromancy itself than with Oblivion, but the link was obvious. 'Yes, she did. Several times, near our departure. Is that what she has tried to do?'

'Look at this place. Everything here hints at Necromancy. Very advanced necromancy. I know very little of the Ideal Masters, but enough to know that's their area of expertise. Besides, what could such a workshop be used for?'

'Certainly not longevity. Not that useful for a vampire,' she replied, turning to her right. She had noticed a piece of the room that was rather secluded from the rest, as if built in a corner. There were many books there, with tattered and ruined covers. _If there's anything to be found, it will be there._ 'What makes you think it's the Soul Cairn she went to?'

'Soul Cairn,' he repeated after her, diving each letter from the other. His tone was pensive, absent.

Serana slowed down involuntarily. _He never is so distracted that he repeats my words, and that wasn't a question._ 'Yes, the Soul Cairn, of course,' she said. She kept thinking what was going on through his mind. Some tangential thoughts of there being fumes or vapors that could numb his mind even passed through her consciousness briefly. 'The home of the Ideal Masters.'

'I've never heard of it.'

She turned behind abruptly, and once again involuntarily. Her legs seemed to have moved of their own accord, and her eyes had widened. 'What? Really? How can you…' She bit her lip. _How can you not know something?_ was the questions she wanted to really ask, but she stopped herself in time. Aside from her surprise, there was a childish joy of having win a difficult game dwelling inside of her. _I know something that he doesn't. I should mark down the day._ 'I only know what my mother told me about it. She had a theory on soul gems. She claimed that the souls used in enchanting and necromancy don't just vanish when they're used. They end up in the Soul Cairn. According to her, powerful necromancers even send souls directly to the Ideal Masters and receive power of their own in return. My mother spent some time trying to contact them, and it would seem she tried to get there herself.' She stopped, laughing under he breath, so faintly that Azrael surely couldn't hear her. 'Did you really not know?'

'I didn't,' he answered. His tone was cold and even as always, as if it didn't much matter. He was inspecting something at the bottom of the protruding elevation, a pile of dust that Serana had immediately discarded as being a simple heap of rubble.

She turned towards the bookshelves again, busy noticing how part of her mind was irrationally defending him for not knowing something. _Consider that,_ said the voice, _if it hadn't been for him, you wouldn't have guessed the Soul Cairn was involved in the first place._ She had a depiction of him that was far more vulnerable than he appeared on the outside, and whether it was an accurate representation of his inner world, she couldn't know, but she had her serious doubts of its accuracy. _The amount of time I spent thinking about him should make me worry more than anything,_ she thought, scolding herself. _We're trying to find someone, my mother, who could possibly be dead, and I'm thinking about someone who's safe, right here._ She remembered what she had thought the earlier that night. That her attention was always directed inward. _Azrael is probably thinking about the mission, about my mother._ It had changed her viewpoint. _But don't get too concerned with it, alright girl?_ she told herself. _You're still the altruist, between the two of us._

She looked at the shelves, trying to send away the thoughts. The wood was very old and dry; after that much time someone would have expected it to have rotten, but the air was so arid that there was no possible way anything could rot. _The pages of the books ran the risk of pulverizing, rather than decaying_. That was her fear. That she would be unable to read anything. _Let's see… A diary… A diary, or a journal._

Old tomes of alchemy, one with a sketch still visible on the cover. It was green, but the color had completely dried and pulverized. _What else?_ It was dark, but it wasn't a problem for her. _There has to be something._ A book, far too big to be a journal. Another big volume, and then a thin book with a blue cover. _This is it, probably._ She grabbed the small manuscript, but as she did she heard a cracking sound in between the two leather protections. She slowly released the grip, and the minced pages fell to the floor in a cascade of little shards of paper. _No, no…_ She looked at them, and would have sighed a breath of relief if she could breathe. There was any writing on the shards. _I was lucky. I need to be more careful._

She swept her eyes over more tomes and books, none of which were the ones she was looking for. _Come on, mother, you can't have left your biggest achievement unwritten._ Her eyes fell on a small book with a reddish cover, thin enough to be a report. Trying to contain her excitement, she grabbed it slowly with two fingers, focusing on her hearing to avoid any unpleasant noise of papers breaking down into small pieces. _This is it,_ she thought, looking at the cover. She slowly opened it and looked at it.

Her mother's handwriting was very recognizable. She was not the most feminine person she had ever met, and it reflected in the simple and practical calligraphy. She felt something in the area of her eyes, but wasn't sure what exactly was happening. _All right, it's her notes._ She was looking at notes from Last Seed of the year they had fled. _We fled on the fifth of Hearthfire._ The very last note in the book dated to the third of that month. _Let's see… Lists. Could be useful._

 _I've done it! After wasting thousands of gold coins on components,  
I've discovered how to sustain the portal.  
I'm listing the components below  
without the proper amounts for my own protection.  
As a secondary precaution, I am combining  
my own blood into the formula  
which should prevent anyone from being able  
to duplicate it and following me into the Soul Cairn._

 _The formula consists of:  
_ _Finely ground bone meal,  
Purified void salt,  
Soul gem shards_

 _Using the proper measurements, place the above  
in the silver-lined portal vessel and add blood as a reactive agent.  
_ _I will make my way into the Soul Cairn tomorrow  
after I gather my things and prepare for a potentially lengthy exile.  
More importantly, I must enact my plans with Serana,  
and get her to Dimhollow Crypt as soon as possible._

Serana closed the book with a snap movement and pursed her lips. 'Damn it,' she groaned, grinding her teeth against one another. She heard the sound of the journal's leaves mincing, but she didn't care.

'What is it?'

She felt a faint heat, an irritating one, at the collected and focused sound of his voice. 'My mother distorted the formula so that it would only work if we add her own blood. How was she so sure that she would be the only one getting in? We wouldn't even be here if we were in the position to have a sample of her blood.'

'How much similarity does this kind of blood magic allow?'

 _What does he mean?_ She looked at the books in front of her absently, trying to understand what that could have implied. _Well, some,_ she thought. 'It tolerates similarities, yes, but I don't know how much.' She turned around, still clutching the journal. 'Were you planning to recreate her blood or something mental of the kind?'

Azrael was inspecting the shelves, holding in his hand a sample of a Blisterwort's cell wall. 'I was considering using yours,' he said. He grazed the surface of the fungus with his finger. 'This sub-specimen of Blisterwort has been considered extinct for at least three thousand years by some alchemists. She has definitely not been here for a long time.'

Serana didn't listen to the rest of the phrase. Stealing a glance his way, she noticed that he had recognized her lack of interest and had stopped talking. _I do hope it could work, but mistakes with those kind of magic can be very, very unpleasant._ 'Do you have any idea of whether our lifeblood will be similar enough not to blow us both up?'

Azrael put down the mushroom and looked down at the stone rings. More precisely, his gaze followed the outer circle of unlit candles. He didn't speak, he just looked at the candles. _They probably remind him of something, or have reminded him in the recent past._ She turned towards him wholly, not just with her head, and waited. She couldn't help but try to understand in what way candles could remind him of something related to blood. Her blood and her mother's of all things.

'You and Valerica,' he said slowly. 'You're both pureblooded. This means you've not been infected, and that you've been given vampirism through a ritual, a common—'

'Azrael, enough,' Serana groaned, turning to the other side. She felt her flesh burning from the inside and the side of her field of view flashing red. _Do not remind me._ She brought her head around. 'Not a word more about rituals, please.'

'You share the vampiric side of your blood and you are her daughter,' he continued, completely unfazed. 'It shouldn't disrupt the magic.'

 _He's right,_ she thought, pulling herself up and standing straight. She was still holding the journal in her hands. The reddish cover was thin and fragile, and it was cracked in the spots when she had pressed the hardest. _If she wasn't able to come back, I wonder what might await us there._ She raised her hand and slid the diary back where it was. _Look,_ she thought observing her hand, _I'm shaking._ She lowered her arm and turned around, casting a last glance at the whole corner filled with shelves and books.

'Take the bone meal,' Azrael said from above.

Serana looked at him, her mouth half-open. She was searching for words, but could hardly found any. 'How in Oblivion did you know we need that, too? You read the journal through my very eyes, by chance?' She looked around, but she didn't see anything that might have been the fine meal her mother had mentioned in the report. 'Where is it, even?'

'On the table to your right.'

She brought her eyes to the table, and in fact there was a bowl full of finely ground bone meal. It was just under the mammoth skull. _Yeah, he…_ She halted for a moment and refocused her senses. She clearly saw the bone meal in front of her, but while walking towards it would have been completely oblivious of anything that was what she was supposed to take. _Try it. Look at the whole table._ She swept it with a glance, picking up on everything she could. _It's too much information,_ she thought, realizing she had to look at each item one at the time to really comprehend what it was.

Grabbing the bowl of bone meal, she turned around and paced towards the stairs. _Maybe it's just training,_ she considered. _If I look at every item in this room, it would take me ages. He's faster, so he can do it._ She tried to structure the thought more coherently, and the best way to frame it was that she, since her attention was inwards, saw the world using her own state as a filter. Azrael seemed to have no such filter. He didn't see the world through anything, and he let the world itself guide his scrutiny of what lied around him. _It's one way of looking at it. What's more, there's what he said to me before. I'm constantly trying to decrease the burden on my shoulders, and I try to see less things to accomplish it. He works in the opposite direction._

She walked up the stairs, with the residues of that reasoning with her. Azrael waited for her at the end of the parapet built on the sides of the protruding part of the room's upper level. Now that she knew a little more of him, she often wondered how differently they saw the same thing. _We might look at an object, and it could be a completely different things for the two of us._ She didn't really know. She could only guess and try to imagine it. _In spite of the very few things he revealed to me in the last hours, he's still a mystery. He just feels more familiar._

The Dunmer extended his arm and opened his palm. 'Give me the bowl.'

She grabbed it with both hands on the rim and deposited in in his hand. 'Here,' she said, 'although, really, how did you guess this was the last ingredient?'

He balanced the container in his hands for a moment, and then turned around, taking two careful steps towards the rim of the protrusion where the vessel stood. 'It was the only other ingredient here that had been treated with magic,' he said. 'I knew that void salts and soul gem fragments were required, and when you explained me about the Soul Cairn, it became quite apparent that another ingredient would have to do with the dead.'

'All right,' she said, smiling ironically.

Azrael had already deposited the soul gem fragments at the bottom of the vessel, covering all the surface, and had spread a layer of void salts over it. He emptied the bone meal bowl on top of it, and the white dust almost covered the salts completely. He put the bowl on the parapet and looked down, towards the rings. _What is he…_ She wondered what he was expecting to happen, but she had barely given a form to her wonder when he jumped down the protrusion.

'What…' She stepped forward, looking at him on the lower level. 'Azrael?'

'Add your blood,' he said. 'I need to light the candles.'

She approached the vessel, looking at Azrael with the corner of her eye. She felt the veil between reality and Aetherius breaking, and a very small quantity of magic bled through the crack. Flames crackled in the Dunmer's palm, overflowing on the candles and melting the wax that was choking the wicks. _Effective,_ she thought, averting her eyes. She looked inside the vessel. _I'm anxious,_ she realized, feeling the need to check again the content to make sure they were correct. She almost doubted the things she had read in the journal. _It's all fine. Just…_

She closed her eyes for a moment, trying to focus. She slowly brought her wrist to her mouth, opened it and sank her canine fangs into the skin. _I thought it would have hurt less,_ she thought, sensing that the pain wasn't exactly nothing. She ripped the skin away, opening a wound large enough so that some blood could get through. _It's been a week since I last fed._ The drops were a viscous mix of her dark blood and the strange transparent life lymph that made it so dense.

Nonetheless, three drops fell in the vessel. The first didn't make it past the layer of bone meal, but the second landed where the first had already moved away some of the mixture of salts and dust. The entire content of the vessel shook at once and crackled strangely. When the third touched the mix, all the ingredients seemed to melt together. The souls gems themselves cracked and broke off in a dozen smaller shards, making a sound similar to the one of glass breaking. The mixture smoldered and a faint heat irradiated from it for a moment.

A sound coming from slightly under her brought her attention elsewhere. She saw Azrael standing beside the circle of candles, and inside them the rings making up the floor were distancing from each other. Violet hues shone in the thin spaces between them. _Are they… rising in the air?_ Some of the pieces were shaking and some were moving in a way that made it seem like they were about to levitate above the floor. When they lost their equilibrium, some did detach from the ground entirely, leaving spaces through which glowed a blinding, purple light.

 _I cannot believe it…_ Serana brought a hand in front of her eyes to protect them from the flash of light, but left a small space in between her fingers so that she could see what was happening. _She actually managed to reach the Soul Cairn._ The small circle of stone in the center of the rings had collapsed down, but there was no such thing as a floor keeping it suspected anymore. As more and more piece of stone took flight, she saw what lied below. It looked like a pit, welling energy all over the room. The magic was overflowing, it even reached her and her own flesh, making her feel slightly weak. 'By the blood of my ancestors…' she whispered, realizing her eyes were open wide in an attempt to take in the whole scene.

'Now that I've seen this, I'm not that surprised,' Azrael said, with a focused frostiness in his voice. 'Violet and purple hues, defying the existence of physical objects and erratic behavior. This is the same magic you were sealed away with, Serana.'

 _He's trying to tell me something, but what?_ She could understand herself that it had implications, but she didn't understand which kinds of implications. 'So what? What does that suggest?'

'That she knew a lot about this kind of magic. However, this makes it more probable that she had dealings with the Ideal Masters herself. They would be a valid enough reason for her failure to return.'

 _It would make sense,_ she thought. Valerica was prudent, nobody could deny it, but she had also a strange tendency. She believed there wasn't a limit to anything. If she found it, she pushed past and broke it. _However, if she started dealing with very dangerous things such as the Ideal Masters, she might have pursued in spite of everything._ Her belief, something that had been invaluable to the court for many years, and probably why Harkon had chosen her as his wife, might have no cost her dearly, much more than she was prepared to sacrifice. 'Azrael,' she asked, hesitating for a moment. 'If she is… stuck, in there,' and she pointed and the purple, seething well of forbidden energy, 'how can we know we will be safe? I mean, she had way more experience than the two of us combined.'

Azrael kept his eyes fixed on the center of the purplish well. He took a step forward, and the next would have landed in the stones that lied inside the portal. 'Make your choice,' he said glacially. 'I'm curious. I'm going in. I want to see this through to the end.' He moved again, raising his foot and stepping inside the circle.

'Azrael!'

His shape shimmered and was enveloped in a violet haze before dissolving into vapor. _You're insane,_ she thought, leaning on the side of the parapet to keep herself on her feet as she rushed past the vessel, marching down the stairs. _You're not even brave. You're just insane._ She put her feet into the portal and felt herself losing her weight, and she knew she was about to be carried somewhere else. _Although, I didn't even consider for one moment leaving him alone._ She had been courageous. And she was almost proud of herself for that.

* * *

Everything that lied outside of her eyes was spinning around uncontrollably, but the only thing she felt was a complete lack of motion. The world around her slowed down, moving more clearly but less regularly in front of her eyes. _Violet hues,_ she remembered; it was the way Azrael had described them. Now they were all around here, in all the possible shades of purple she could name. They blurred and sharpened at intervals, irregularly.

The image stabilized gradually, but only so much. There wasn't a lot to look at. Her head was reclined backwards, and she was looking at whatever had taken the place of the ceiling. There was a strong tingling sensation permeating her body. _Nothing that a real stimulus could give. This has to me magic-induced._ In the end, they were only partially dead in a place where only the truly dead could enter. Her mother had made her way through the portal and she must have known of that caveat, so she hadn't worried about it. _It doesn't change the fact that we shouldn't be here._

She lowered her eyes. Azrael was in front of her, and he was looking ahead. Serana too tried to take in the view, but she was overcome with surprise and disbelief. _I never thought it would be this bad…_ Not even Coldharbour was as barren as that place, and that was saying a lot. The one thing that was probably the most alienating about that place, more than the view itself, was the complete and unnatural lack of smells. There were no normal odors and equally there weren't any traces of fresh blood lingering. Nothing. _It makes everything look more a hallucination than anything._

Despite everything, it wasn't very far from what she had imagined. She could freely admit that she had never thought about the smell such a place would have, and likewise she had never pictured it clearly, but it was what it was supposed to do. _A sepulcher for the cursed._ 'Well,' she said, 'I never expected I'd see this place for myself.'

She shifted her eyes on Azrael, but he didn't even attempt at making his attention overt. Serana had noticed that he never really ignored something she said, but there were moments when he didn't seem to have any mental space left to formulate any kind of response to what she said. He was looking at the landscape, keeping his head perfectly still. _Moving his pupils,_ Serana thought. _He does that when he's not looking for details._ That in turn meant he was still taking in the big picture. _He's probably already trying to mentally map what he can see on the horizon._ She followed his gaze, and the only relevant thing that was in front of him was a whiter, slim track on the terrain.

She looked at it herself. The ground was dense and solid, more like rock or compacted dirt, and of light colors. Most of it reflected the purple colors of the sky. Her eyes moved away from the terrain, drawn to the hole in the center of the Cairn's sky. _Or whatever it is._ The energies seemed to converge there, flowing towards it in circles and falling inside it. _It would be less strange if that thing was upside-down._ It was unsettling at best and frightening at worst. The constant flow was a reminder that none of the things that were familiar applied to that place.

'You're tense.'

Azrael's word brought her back, and she shifted her eyes from the sky. It took her a few moments to feel the sense of confusion that the sentenced evoked in her. 'Of course I'm tense, how could I not be? We're in a daedric real with its entities possibly watching our every move. We don't even know where to go.'

She saw him turning his head slightly behind and glancing at her for a brief moment. 'No,' he said, calmly, 'we do know that. It's the only thing we know, in fact.'

Serana gave him a mocking look, but he had already turned around. 'Do we?'

'Look.' He pointed at the strip of terrain that had the brighter color. 'That's a pathway, it's quite clear. The portal always transports the user to the same location, so your mother also found herself here where we are. She probably followed it, and I would wager she tried to reach that fortress over in the distance,' he said, shifting his index finger from the pathway to two distant towers, the top of which was coated with spiraling coils of purple haze.

'Why should she be there? I mean, this place must be immense.'

Azrael remained silent for a moment. He waved the fingers of his left hand; whether consciously or otherwise, Serana could not tell. 'When I said you were tense, I really meant that you didn't seem very focused.' He brought his right hand to his chest and tugged the leather band that held the bandoliers firmly before stepping down the long, winding stairs which floated in the air. 'Look around and find the answer yourself.'

His words managed to bring some degree of awareness on her state. She had not noticed the strong stiffness that had a hold on her. In some ways, she felt that if she had ever let go of that tightness, she would simply dissolve into the air as if she was vapor. _Fear, very strong. I feel weak._ The strength with which her mind was working on the background was completely below her level of consciousness, but it was doubtlessly making it harder for her to focus. She felt distracted, as if the purple haze was also penetrating her mind and numbing it. _I might have even considered it true, at some point._

On the other hand, however, she felt the Dunmer's words as unnecessarily impertinent. _He treated me like a child. Yes, I am tense, and yes, I didn't take in my surroundings very well, so what?_ He had his own ways of judging a person's efficacy. _My mother's life might be on the line and we have just set foot in a plane of Oblivion. It seems natural to be scared._ She gazed at him for a moment. He was stepping down the stairs, glancing around. _I am a bit fragile, though, am I now?_ she thought. Looking his way had made her feel some of that exhilaration she had felt earlier that night, and that made her change her perspective on the matter a little. _Still, you're insane._

She began the descent herself, walking down one step at a time. She didn't really fear falling down from that height, but the idea that the floating staircase could betray her at any time and collapse to the ground made her shake. Her eyes were still turned towards the Dunmer, who was pacing down without any worries. While slightly envious of his reliance on the safety of the staircase, the mere sight gave her some courage. _Absurd,_ she said to herself. _Someone like me, who didn't even trust her own parents, has chosen to trust Azrael of all people._ But then again, she distrusted normal. Whatever looked unassuming, she assumed there was something dangerous about it. Azrael wasn't unassuming. She could distrust him without being ambivalent. _Or maybe he's just the first person I've seen after having been locked away for millennia,_ she thought with a mirthless smile.

With that train of thought going away, she felt like she could finally focus on the outside. _So… I said that this place is immense, and he contradicted me._ That meant there had to be something that he considered apparent that made that statement false. She looked at the horizon, and saw giant towers and various other landmarks, but nothing remarkable. _There are those wells and those cracks in the ground…_ she observed, saying every word inside her mind as a way to concentrate. _There's the towers where he said mother would be… Those towers are build in between those high walls…_

The walls. That was probably what she had missed. From those towers in the distance the walls continued along the borders of the land as far as her eyes could see. And since it was the eye of a vampire, it could see quite far. She followed the fortifications on both sides of the fortress in the distance, noticing that they never stopped and there wasn't any visible opening or gate in them. _As a last proof…_ she thought, turning her head sharply around, _what's behind me? Walls,_ she realized, seeing that the black rampant continued even behind them. _Walls everywhere. This place is closed shut. There's nowhere else we can go._ The central spot of that enclosed space was the fortress in the distance. _Now it all makes sense,_ she thought, content with herself. She quickened her steps, trying to close the distance with Azrael.

'I got it,' she said, smiling and with a playful tone in her voice. _Why do I wonder why he treats me as a child when I behave like one?_ She ate back some of her enthusiasm before continuing. 'The walls surround us. There's not way out.'

'Precisely.' His tone was deep, and there was something else that transpired from it. It seemed to reflect the gloom around them, which made it a little grim.

Serana returned to her senses at hearing him speak in that way, because she too became aware of how eerie and frightening it was to simply be there. They were at the bottom of the stairs, on the level of the ground. If seeing the landscape from the top of the stairs had been very strange and alienating, standing at the bottom was fearsome. The violet fumes were flowing around them and curling around their frames, and there was something menacing in the way they moved. The light cast down from the giant pit in the sky made them glow in unsettling ways.

There were subtle noises in the air, which alternately sounded like something sizzling and the hisses of a snake. Serana looked around, not only trying to find the source, but also trying to understand why they were so irregular. _They're unchanging now,_ she thought, listening intently and waiting for them to become stronger. At once point, the whistle turned into the stronger sizzle. _There. What's causing it?_ She looked around multiple times, and upon looking in front of her the answer passed her by. Or more precisely, floated her by. 'What are those things?' she asked aloud, almost too caught up in her own surprise to keenly look at anything about them.

Azrael shifted his head in the creature's direction. 'Souls, I'd say,' he answered. The being which was making that noise had a strange shape, that Serana could only think of as a falling star. It had a compact, round head area and then a shimmering tail of white matter that waned gradually behind him as it moved around. 'Only black souls are relinquished to the Soul Cairn,' Azrael continued. 'maybe this are some very old ones.'

'Doesn't the absence of smell's… unsettle you?'

'It feels queer, I agree.'

The creature drifted past them. There was no way of telling if it was conscious, and if it was, where his attention was, but it acted as if it hadn't noticed them in the slightest. She noticed Azrael moving his right hand, bring it down again by his side. _He raised it to be closer to the longsword,_ she guessed, recognizing the movement he had made. _He did consider that thing being dangerous._ She looked at the shimmering tail disappearing behind a small mound in the compacted, colorless terrain. There was a deep crack in its highest point, from which seeped out a thick haze, darker than the one that lingered in the air around them.

'Estormo.'

Serana turned towards Azrael. His voice had taken on a scornful tone like she had never heard from him. He was facing a low brick wall that bordered the path they were taking. Leaning on it, there was a shape. _What in blazes is…_ Serana stopped for a moment, but then realized it was just a shadow. A phantom. It was similar in color to the creature that had floated by, but this one had the clear shape of a humanoid. _An Elf, actually,_ she thought, noticing the long robes he was wearing. A hood was lowered on his face, but the outlines were so incredibly thin that she couldn't see much either way. As all the information began to make sense, a storm of questions peaked out into her mind. _Why is this one still in his normal shape? And how in Oblivion does Azrael know him?_

The phantom held his hands at the height of his chest, the elbows bent and the palms half-opened. His head was moving around, languidly but at the same time quite frantically. 'Where is he…?' it muttered, the voice reverbing but still recognizably the one of someone out of breath. 'Where is he…?' The accent was that of an Altmer, a bit different from what she remembered them speaking but close enough. Vingalmo's accent, for instance, was different. _If Azrael recognized him, it means he has died recently… If recently deceased ones do retain their original shape, it could make sense for the creature to be a very old soul._ How exactly Azrael had thought of that was unclear, but she stored that for later. There was a more pressing question she wanted to ask. 'Azrael,' she said. 'How do you know this Altmer?'

The Dunmer was looking at the Elf's phantom like someone would look at an animal in a cage. 'I'm the reason he's here,' he said, unemotionally.

 _He didn't…_ Serana caught up to what he had said, realizing that he had not answered her question but rather the one she would have asked immediately after. _Clever you,_ she thought. 'You were the one who killed him? Or the one who used his soul gem?'

'Both.' Azrael averted his gaze from the Elf's phantom and brought it in front of him, on the road. 'He tried to stop me, a few months ago. As all the people who had tried to thus far, he died. I cast a soul-ensnaring hex to weaken him and then slit his throat.' He brought his right hand to the hilt of the dagger and curled his fingers around it. He tugged a little, making a small portion of the blade come out. 'This dagger had a very powerful enchantment on it, something I designed for myself with the help of a expert in the field. That Altmer's soul was the fuel for the magical infusing.'

Serana couldn't help but laugh under her breath. 'You don't seem to be very remorseful about what you've done.'

'He was a conceited idiot.' He remained silent, afterwards, but Serana knew that silence. The thing he had just said had linked to another thought, and one that he had the intention to share as soon as he was done formulating it. 'I could have enchanted the circlet I gave you, now that I think of it.'

Serana hands move a lot father than any of her thoughts and touched the spot of her belt where she kept the jewel wrapped up in the leather folds. _He hasn't mentioned it for a very long time. I almost believed he had forgotten about it._ Too many things at once were surfacing. _Calm down,_ she told herself, batting her eyelids to aid her in clearing her head. _Nothing's happened, he just remembered about it._ Azrael had always had a tendency of placing very little value on things that everyone else would consider immensely meaningful. That diadem was the perfect example. It was an item worthy of a queen, and he had given it to her in a matter that was terse on most standards and nothing more than normal on his own standards. _A present for his dear Elisif, that much I would understand,_ she thought. _She's almost a queen, after all. But for me?_ It had always seemed strange, as if there was something more behind that gift.

It was also surprising how inconsequential his line of thinking seemed to be from the outside. Serana could easily picture it, from the things she knew about him. _He values practicality and usefulness among anything. He clearly thought back about the circlet and, in light of some new events or insights he'd had since then, he deemed it useless._ For what was the point of enchanting that piece of jewelry, if not to make it more useful? _If he was someone else, anyone else, I would think he'd be bringing this up to remind me that I don't wear it. But he isn't like that._ He was centered and egocentric. He saw the world rotating around himself, in a way. He had done his part and had given her the diadem. What she did with it probably didn't concern him all that much.

 _Should I…_ She removed the thought, but another one arose. It was similar almost to the point of being identical. _Should I ask him what it meant?_ While living around him, one inevitably learns the importance of utilitarianism. She knew there were little moments when he was in the disposition of answering questions, and right then was the most prolonged and relaxed moment there had been between them ever since they had met. _I really shouldn't think about it like this,_ she told herself. It made him look childish and capricious, where instead the moments when he was open were clear. The only reason why she could just as well consider them based on chance was that she didn't feel one of the factors that contributed to it. It was the thing they were doing and how much he was interested in it that changed his outer temper. _Well, whatever it is, maybe it's a good time to ask._

'Azrael—'

'Not now.'

She halted. She had been so preoccupied with her own thoughts that she had neglected her surroundings for a few moments. _Again…_ She quickly tried to orient herself, and above all trying to guess what Azrael had silenced her for. _Something he has seen…_ she guessed, looking at him and following his gaze. He was looking slightly upwards, between the horizon and the sky, or whatever the ceiling of the Soul Cairn could be called, but there wasn't anything there. _He's completely still, so he's looking…_ But then again, there wasn't anything of importance there. _A tower and little else…_ _A noise, perhaps, but what noise would make him look to the sky?_ Besides, there weren't any suspicious sounds. _Not even the hiss of those floating beings._ She cast another glance his way.

She noticed his hand. His right hand. It was bent just beside his head, but the palm was more open then if he meant to grab the longsword. _It's stiff, so it hasn't opened. And he never fails to grab the handle of his blade._ On the other hand, there was a weapon on his back that she had yet to see him use: the bow. The longbow with that strange emblem on it. It was a bird, but not a bird of prey. _A robin, maybe a nightingale._ Nevertheless, it was bow with thick limbs that not everyone had the strength to draw. His hand now hovered near the upper limb, no doubt ready to move quickly down at the grip. _He's looking at the sky and about to grab a bow._ He had silenced her, which might mean that he had heard a noise and that he was waiting to hear it again. _Something that comes from the sky._ It was expensive in terms of focus for her to piece together the context of what he did, but there was no other way.

She brought a hand closer to her side, already preparing to call magic to it. She felt tension beginning to gather in her body, the limbs tensing and her senses enhancing their precision. _He's not moving,_ she thought, looking at Azrael. When she had emerged from her thoughts, she had found him completely still. His feet were firmly planted on the ground, and he was in a position where he could be stable. _He's not doing anything. He's just ready for a fight._ The tension crept up to her jaws, making them stiff. She realized how dry her mouth was. The sensory information had reached her consciousness but her saliva glands were unable to produce anything. The cold feeling of fear gripping had already frozen her chest. _We could be attacked any moment, and I don't even know by what._ She kept her gaze on the sky. It was her best bet, if Azrael wouldn't be more specific.

She turned around, knowing that Azrael would be watching her back. _How did I not hear anything? A noise seems the only likely thing to have put him on this level of alert, but I didn't hear anything._ She focused on her hearing, but it was even more unsettling. There wasn't a single noise in the air beside the low rustle of the fissures all around emitting the thick purple haze. _Nothing there…_ she thought, once again reminding herself that whatever Azrael had heard, it had come from above. She turned once again in his direction. _Come on, it's impossible that I haven't heard anything._ The high tension was making her anxious, and that in turn was making her frustrated. _What did you hear?_ She looked at him more carefully, repeating the cycle. First his gaze. _He's looking up… But, wait…_ He wasn't really looking at the sky. _The tower…_

All her limbs and muscles locked themselves into place. She couldn't move anything, and even staying on her feet proved difficult for a short moment. It was as if she had been hit by a paralyzing spell, but she hadn't. _What in Oblivion…_ She looked at the dark shape perched on top of the tower, where Azrael had been looking all along and where she hadn't seen anything when she had looked for the first time. It was black on black. 'Azrael…' Her voice quavered. She was shaking, and not entirely of fear. 'What is that?'

'It's a Dragon.'

 _No. It's impossible. How can a Dragon be here?_ She went over the shape once again, trying to find another solution that could explain the strange shape of the tower's top. _Stop,_ she told herself, _stop doing this. There's a Dragon there, and that is all too real to be a vision._ Not much could be seen of it. A crystal shaped like a lozenge floated on the tower just behind, emitting a faint light that completely obscured what could otherwise be seen of the monster. Even her enhanced sight could not deal with the strong contrast. 'How did it manage to come here?' she asked, whispering.

'Good question,' he answered. 'I can't imagine a portal that would allow something of his size to get through. The only possible solution is that he was summoned here by the Ideal Masters themselves.'

The frost grip seemed to grasp her throat for a moment. 'But if that's true, then he's here to stop us, isn't it?'

'It's a he,' he corrected her impassively. 'And yes, he is.' Azrael had bent his back and partially hid behind the low brick wall that bordered the pathway, but now he rose and stood straight. He stepped back from the bulwark, bringing his hand away from the grip of the bow and leaving the palms open and exposed in the Dragon's direction. He didn't speak, but he gestured her with his hand, pointing the base of the wall.

Serana complied and crouched under the small hedge, lowering her shoulders as much as he could and only leaving her head peaking out of the cover. She brought the palm closer to her chest and weakened the barrier with Aetherius a little more. _I don't know what he means to do, but that Dragon won't be happy to see us here._ She went over everything once again and reviewed what information they had, and the shock just wouldn't go away. _A Dragon, here?_ She wasn't that surprised because she still didn't fully believe it. She wasn't able to do so that quickly. She looked towards the Dunmer, who had spread his legs a little and had took on a majestic stance, with his hidden chin raised and the hands open.

' _Drem Yol Lok, Zeymah!_ '

Serana was surprised at first to hear how much his voice had changed, but then she remembered Dimhollow. When he had spoken to the Draugr, he had used that same voice. It because even deeper and sonorous. It wasn't really his voice that changed, it was the language itself. It had to be uttered in a stronger tone, but its sound alone was more powerful. This once, it rang across the empty air, without producing an echo. _I wonder what he has said to him. Because he's communicating with the Dragon, isn't he?_

' _Wo Los Hi?_ ' Azrael screamed again, and from the tone it was clear he was asking something.

' _Bo Nah Gut!_ '

That had been the voice of the Dragon. It was different from Azrael's, very different. He was a monster, while he was a al Elf. _I quivered,_ she realized, not finding her own balance as easily after she had gained a new hold on her senses. She brought her gaze towards the Dunmer, because she wanted confirmation; those words had sounded incredibly aggressive to her ears, but there was no way of knowing if she was right. She could just listen to her gut and little else. Azrael was completely still, not moving once muscle. _The game is still on, probably._ But she didn't feel it would be on for a long time. After that, there would be another game where there were no rules and the stronger and smarter one would win.

' _Nis_ ,' Azrael replied. ' _Zu'u Tovit Gein_.'

' _Kren Sosaal!_ '

Azrael's head turned tersely and abruptly in Serana's direction. The movement had been quick and firm. 'Run.' He kept looking towards her, but he brought his legs closer together and the hands back by his side with swift and measured movements, shifting his chest towards the continuation of the pathway.

 _We're not escaping,_ Serana understood from the direction he had turned towards. _We're going further away from the portal._ Likewise, she knew when his motions became that precise and fast. _He's ready for a fight._ There had been too little time to think about it, but the last thing the Dragon had said had sounded even more hostile than the last one. The mere sound of it was dreadful. _He's going to attack us._ She rose to her feet and hurried to Azrael's side.

She caught up with him while he wasn't already speeding up, but when she did he dashed forward into a running pace that she had never seen him take. He normally walked with long strides. He had long legs and walked a lot, so it was only natural to have grown accustomed to making the most out of each step, but he retained that even while he ran. _He's fast,_ she thought, understanding that she wouldn't have managed to stay behind him if she hadn't given that her all. _Well? Go!_ she said to herself, accelerating. 'What did he say?' she cried at him.

'Paraphrasing, that we're not welcome,' he answered, turning his head to the side and seeing how she was keeping up.

 _I so hate being a burden,_ she thought with a sting of frustration. However, there was very little space for every emotion right then. The sudden movement, even if unmotivated by any threats, had made it clear to both her body and her vampiric core that she was at risk of dying. The sense of touch was spreading along her body like it often did, all the way to her canine teeth. The sensation of overflowing strength in her limbs was what allowed her to ran at such breakneck speed. She looked at her side how fast the wall and the landscape passed them by, and it was really fast. _We could outrun a horse, running this fast._ There was an interior sense of enjoyment of the danger, a need for intensity that only arose at such times, when she felt her life was on the line.

Her ears filled with a strong noise, and then the only thing she could hear was a strong and continuous whistle. _Damn,_ she thought, shaking her head and trying to make the shrill go away. She focused on her eyes for a moment because she felt like she was losing her balance. She bent to the left and almost slipped, but she quickly returned to a stable position and kept running. _A roar,_ she understood. No other sound could have been so strong to deafen her and shake the air with enough strength to make her lose her balance. She stole a quick glance at Azrael, who was a few feet ahead of her and on her right, and he too had his hands distant from the body and the palms towards the terrain. He had been destabilized too.

 _If he roared, though…_ She waited for the whistle to wane, and the more it did the more she heard more sounds. Prolonged sounds, deep and unfamiliar. However, she could easily guess what they were. They were the sounds of the Dragon waving his wings. She felt the tension rising as well as her senses sharpening. _Where is he coming from?_ Her hearing soon took over much of her conscious attention in the attempt to locate the sound. _Behind us,_ she decided, based on what she could hear. The flapping was shifting, moving from the left to the backs. _If he attacks us from behind, there might be problems ahead._

They kept running. It was the only thing to do, it seemed. _Azrael is the one they call Dragonborn. If he doesn't know what to do with a Dragon, I don't think I ever will._ Most of them weren't aggressive towards mankind when she was born. _Well, they weren't until you stepped in their territory._ That was both a useless piece of information and a possible hypothesis as to why that Dragon had attacked them. _But what is a Dragon doing in the Soul Cairn, of all places? Azrael's right, there is no portal large enough to bring him here. And what have the Ideal Masters brought him here for?_ She listened to the sound of waving wings one last time before letting it slip into the background.

They were sprinting past things that were as much bizarre as they were intimidating. From the solid, pale terrain of the Cairn emerged old structures, dilapidated towers and blocks of stone slabs. The place was full of those strange creatures they had seen before, all floating around and apparently oblivious of the two intruders. The fissures emitting the thick purple haze were everywhere, and now they were encountering even stranger landmarks. One of them was something that looked akin to a spout, which propelled white currents into the air. They were also nearing a very high archway ahead, which looked like part of the wall the place was enclosed within.

'Duck!'

She turned her head towards Azrael and followed his gaze, but also obeyed his order and lowered her whole body to the height of her abdomen. Her eyes pinpointed an arrow flying through the air, which whistled above her head. _That would have ripped through my shoulder,_ she thought, trying to guess what that would have done if not for the warning, _I would have probably been able to dodge, but it wasn't guaranteed._ She brought her shoulders at their normal height again and found Azrael again, trying to stay by his side. _Hold on,_ she thought after the spike of energy of the dodge had subsided. _An arrow? Who shot it?_

She tried to reconstruct the trajectory and adjust based on the distance they had covered, and then tried to identify anything that moved. She found it behind a small archway embedded more than halfway into the ground. Behind there was a skeletal figure with bones black as coal, who resembled a reanimated skeleton but only in regards to the upper portion. _He's levitating,_ she realized after trying to understand the lack of legs. There was a purplish mist around its abdomen, and that was keeping it suspended in the air. He had both hands free to hold a bow, which had another arrow knocked in.

Azrael's didn't warn her this time, but she did just as they had done before and dipped. The projectile flew above their heads, but this time it was closer than before. _Rudimentary intelligence, it seems,_ she thought. _I wonder if they are daedric in nature or if they are yet another form of the poor sods who ended up in here after their souls had been used._ She paid close attention once again to the sounds around her, once more hearing the Dragon waving his wings. _He's closer,_ she thought, feeling a claw grasping her throat, _still quite far away though, it would seem._ She stole another glance at Azrael. He was now running exactly by her side, on her right, and the sound of his cloak flapping wildly was the strongest sound by far.

' _Diil Qoth Zaam!_ '

Serana lost her balance once more. She stretched her arms and regained it after a brief moment, but when she came to she found herself with her mouth still open in surprise and vaguely unaware of what was going on. _That magic again._ It was the same as when Azrael had breathed either fire or ice against their enemies and the one the Draugr had used to propel her to the ground. The fabric of reality was torn and something new was sewn in to replace it.

'Undead…' she heard Azrael whisper. His voice was deep and absent. 'Tomb.' She looked his way, incapable of understand what he was on about. _Maybe he's translating._ He had read the wall written in Dragon Tongue with relative ease. This one seemed to require some more concentration. He never thought out loud. ' _Zaam…_ ' he said, whispering. 'Unwilling servant… Slave.' As he said that last word, his eyes moved all of a sudden towards the horizon. They darted around a couple more times. 'By the Three,' he growled. 'Watch out. He beckoned more.'

Serana looked around. Another few moments and they would have reached the big archway. _He probably anticipated that. Once beyond, every ground enemy will not manage to keep up._ She could imagine him being able to calculate exactly how much time they would spend reaching the building itself, but she couldn't. _Half a minute probably,_ but she knew she could have been wrong. The dim light distorted all perceptions, especially spatial awareness. _He beckoned more, he said._ Undead Tomb Slave. _More of the little ones._ She looked over her shoulders, trying to look in the same direction as Azrael had done. Against the endless expanse of the Cairn, some more small figures had appeared. _The Dragon summoned them, then._

Her eyes instinctually moved on to something else. _Two… Three archers with the previous one._ There was one more in the distance, a figure with the skull covered by a rugged hood. _A mage._ There were others, but they were further away. Those, however, were firing what they had. She saw clearly two arrows coming their way and two ice shards fired from the hooded one. The physical projectiles were dense enough to make it impossible to dodge them all at once. 'Azrael!' she screamed.

'On the ground!' he shouted back.

She complied once again. She let her feet slide against the ground and her weight bring her forward. She was still in the air when the first arrow hissed above her head. The fletching grazed a lock of her hair, sending them flying. The impact with the ground was more felt than heard, as Azrael had landed roughly in the same moment and had covered her softer sound. It also covered the whistle of one more arrow and the two ice shards wheezing above their heads. _You can feel that he's been in so many of these situations,_ she thought, looking at Azrael while he put his palms on the ground to bounce on his feet again. _He calculates and executes to perfection._ She imitated the movement, placing the palms at the height of the shoulders and recollecting her legs, sending them past the line of her head and giving the little boost required to accelerate again.

They were halfway closer to the archway then they were when she had tried to understand how long it would take. _I don't even know how much time actually passed between now and then._ The only thing she was keeping track of for herself were the timing of the projectiles coming their way. _However…_ There was also another disturbance, a strong sound. She felt herself freezing from them inside. _The Dragon…_ 'The Dragon is right behind us!' she yelled.

'I know!' he screamed. 'Focus!'

She knew why he had said that. He had kept the timing on the wave of projectiles too. She sharpened her hearing one more and heard at the arrows coming in. She softer whistle of the missiles and the screeching one of the ice shards. She first dodged to the left, then ducked and then kept on the left still. The first arrow passed her by and struck Azrael's pauldron. The tip snapped and the shaft bounced back, all without causing barely any damage. The thing she had ducked under were the two ice missiles, which flew above her and shattered against the archway up ahead. The third was an arrow, which she dodged and lost sight of. _All right, now some more time to…_

She felt a strong impact at the height of her waist. On the left. Her field of vision changed, twisting diagonally, and everything blurred for a moment. _What…?_ She didn't feel anything in particular except for a very unpleasant feeling on the impact zone, but she was stumbling to the side. She was falling to the ground. _No._ She pulled herself up straight, but she was dragged sideways again. _No._ Her hand darted to the spot in the waist that had been hit, and when she reached it she found something sticking out of it. _By the blood… It's an arrow._ She looked at the archway. It was barely a few yards away, but she felt she wouldn't have made it.

'Azrael,' she called out, feeling her voice breaking. 'They've hit me!' He was a few steps in front of her, probably because she had slowed down and he had assumed it was completely normal.

Even before she had finished speaking, probably already guessing something was wrong judging by her tone, he had turned around tersely. The impenetrable blackness that hid the face was more mysterious than ever. _How much we rely on the reactions of others…_ Serana said to herself, dragging herself forward but feeling that it was become more and more difficult with every motion.

She saw a flash, Azrael reaching for her with a hand. The cold grasp closed around her shoulder, and then he tugged very strongly. She almost lost contact with the ground and completely lost her balance, tumbling to the side. She was completely airborne for a moment, without any contact whatsoever with the terrain, and then she landed on her shoulder, on the opposite side of the wound. She felt a dull pain coming from the inside of her body rather than from the injury itself. _I wouldn't feel that much pain for a normal wound._ There was one, unpleasant explanation. _Height of the waist. The arrow had snapped some ribs._

She threw her head over her shoulder as much as she could and she looked at Azrael. _They'll be firing again,_ she thought. Some of the projectiles were already in flight. He had drawn the longsword after having tugged her behind him. _That's what he did,_ she realized, _he threw me behind him._ A single thought surged past her consciousness, but it was able to bring more warmth and conform than anything else in that moment. _He has put himself in harm's way to protect me._ The arrows were approaching and so were the shards of ice. She saw his left hand closed firmly on the grip of the longsword.

The first arrow reached him, and just before it did the blade of the longsword seemed to vanish. There was a snapping sound, and then the blade reappeared in front of Azrael's frame, while the shaft of the arrow fell on the ground a few feet away. He then bent his head left, and two other arrows hissed past the side of his head. He raised his right vambrace, the one holding the sword, and kept it still for long enough for the ice shard to shatter against it, making his arm quake. Serana froze when she saw the last ice missile coming his way, but she saw that the spike was dissolving in a flash of light. There was a stream of flame coming from Azrael's felt hand which completely melted it.

' _Yol… Toor Shul!_ '

Serana looked at the source of the noise. _The Dragon…_ she thought. She was motionless, incapable of moving even if she would have had to. She didn't see anything that resembled a Dragon beyond Azrael's black frame, but only a sudden blaze. The air around her heated up. Her skin hurt, starting to sizzle and burn as if it was being touched by a burning iron. On the sides of the blaze, she could see two black, enormous shapes against the sky. They were tattered and ruined in some places, with holes that allowed her to see the sky beyond. The light came closer and closer and the heat became more unbearable with every passing moment.

' _Joor Zah Frul!_ '

Pain. Pain everywhere, but she recognized Azrael's voice speaking those last three words. The blaze disappeared abruptly, and after a new and eerie flash of blue light there was nothing more. She saw only black. A prolonged sound beat against her ears, but the pain was too strong. She still felt as if she was burning to cinders in that very moment. She caught her hands rubbing her legs uncontrollably, trying to put out the fires. _There is no fire…_ Her skin was still scorching, she could hardly think of anything that wasn't the pain. She snapped her jaws, looking for something to bite. There was nothing, only the thick air of the Soul Cairn, which lacked any smell.

Her hand stopped its frantic motion when a new sound filled the air. More sounds, in fact. There was a more vicious one, a roar, shredding the air. It was grim, it carried the feeling of pain and desperation. Then, there was a different one, one that grew with each passing second. A sharper sound, less alive. Time distorted, bent by her sensations, and both noises ended in a louder mix of the two that deafened her once more, leaving an ear-splitting hiss in their stead.

'Serana.'

She batted her eyelids and saw a black, black void staring right at her. 'Fire…' she murmured, but her voice broke after that. Even the pain of the wound had become unbearable. Her skin was still sizzling. She felt her limbs shaking, but she was afraid to move them any further.

'Let go. Faint.'

She could not think clearly, but she felt the answer. She remembered it. 'Too long…' She snapped her jaws again, baring her teeth. 'Too long since I fed.'

She heard a soft sound, and then a warm and pleasant sensation filled her mouth. _Blood…_ she thought, feeling alive. Her vision cleared a little, but the pain was still there. _It burns…_ She heard no more sounds, nothing al all. _Is… Oh, no._ She felt herself losing consciousness, her vision darkening and her senses shutting down. One last coil of the ice stopped her. _You're fainting, and you have no idea what he could do while you sleep._ She cast away the thought. _He risked his life for me. I can trust him._

'The Dragon…'

'He crashed against the archway and demolished it.' His voice, although always cold and unemotional, had taken on a soothing note. She was unable to decide if she was imagining it or if it was true. 'His slaves disappeared when he did, and I shot the last one. You're safe. Now let go.'

 _Let go._ She felt that he was holding her from underneath. His right gauntlet was against her shoulders, the left on her lower back. She reclined her head backwards and her eyes closed. The sense of touch receded and the pain went away, her hearing dulled to the point of disappearing and everything became black. She felt her heart beating slowly.


	22. Chapter XXI: Qahnaarin, Thuri

Chapter XXI: _Qahnaarin, Thuri_

* * *

The eerie, shimmering sensation of a dim light pierced her eyes. Darkness swiftly returned, but it wasn't the same as a moment before. The brightness was still reaching her to some extent, only weakened and dyed red by something stretching over her pupils. _Obvious,_ she thought, _my own eyelids._ She felt them closed shut, but could not consciously move them. They were quaking, trying to protect her sight. With great effort, she managed to lift them again for a few moments before they fell down again. But before they did, she had seen a dark, violet sky. _The Soul Cairn. We're still inside._

She kept her eyes closed, easing the tension in her facial muscles, and feeling her whole body. _I've fallen unconscious so many times I might consider myself an expert,_ she thought, sensing her lips barely forming a smile. It was the fourth time she could remember coming out of a comatose state. Once right after being released from the prison in Dimhollow, after having been put to sleep by Azrael still in the crypt, after having bitten him, and finally in that precise moment. _The arrows, the Dragon…_ She remembered it all quite well, and the clarity on what had occurred calmed her to a degree.

Her left hand crept to where the arrow had struck. Her hand grazed the stone. She could almost recall the precise sensation of the surface of the shaft against her fingertips. Quite a neutral sensation, if not for the association with the fact that she had been wounded. This time, however, there was no arrow sticking out from the wound. Her fingers touched the jagged dip in the armor left by the impact, and that was everything that remained of the wound. She didn't clearly feel any pain, neither the piercing pain of the wound or the duller one of the damaged bones. _That went smoothly,_ she thought, _but now where aim I?_ She tried to recall something about the sky she had just seen upon opening her eyes, but she already remembered none of the details. _I'm flat on my back,_ she quickly decided, after feeling the stone along her whole body.

'Azrael?' she called aloud, still trying to raise her eyelids. The air rushing from her throat made her aware of the metallic and sweet taste of the blood lingering on her mouth.

Nobody answered in words, but she felt a quick motion behind her. Heard, rather. _Scratching, but light_. It might have been a boot grazing the ground. However, her intuition quickly told her that wasn't Azrael. _Too quick a movement, and too anxious._ Azrael never reacted with that energy to anything. _Unreactive…_ The word seemed to float through her mind for a moment, but it was beside the point. Whatever had made that sound, it was something that had moved quickly, and given it had happened just as she had spoken, it was probable that it was someone's response to her words. _But if not Azrael's, whose?_ She brought her right hand to her side and lowered it, searching for solid ground.

'Serana!'

Her arm froze half-way through the movement. From it, the ice gripped her chest. But there was nothing in her mind expect for a confused mixture of various things she could hardly even name. 'Mother?' There were new sounds, but different from the one before them. These were clearer, the sound of a boot sole against the stone. Footsteps. _My mother's… How can that even be?_

'Serana…'

'Is it really you? I… I can't believe it.'

Before she could do anything, two hands slipped underneath her shoulders and pushed her upwards. She felt her head falling back for a moment, but then found the strength to straighten her neck. Feeling the quick movements, her eyes opened wide, capturing a fading glimpse of the barren, pale wasteland dotted with ruins that extended in front of her. The image waned quickly, because there was only one thing on which her mind could concentrate, and that was trying to convince herself that it was truly her mother that was speaking to her. She hadn't lied when saying that she could not believe it.

'Are you well?' her mother asked. 'You fell.'

 _What?_ She recollected everything that could suggest a fall, but she couldn't remember anything. 'I fell? What do you mean?'

Valerica briefly hesitated before answering. 'You were sitting with your back against a barrier. A magical barrier,' she clarified. 'It disappeared, and you fell down on your back.'

'I don't remember. I wasn't conscious yet.' With that more recent riddle out of the way, all her thoughts came back to her in full force. So much questions and so much feelings that there was no way she could find her way through their web alone. 'How did I arrive here?'

'Your companion brought you here.' Her mother's tone took on a hint of frost. 'I saw the Dragon attacking someone on the road here. Minutes after, he arrived here carrying you in his arms. He left you here.'

'Where is he now?'

'First, tell me why you brought him here in the first place.'

A number of different sensation occurred, that seemed to rise up her body. First, her chest tightened lightly. Secondly, her throat clenched. She had drank blood recently, so she was breathing slowly, and that was more noticeable than if not. Lastly, her jaws closed tightly, locking her teeth together and readying for the bite. Her mother's voice was coming from her right, and she turned her head left instinctively. _Yes, I felt fear when she talked to me. But I had forgotten the resentment._

'Mother,' she said, and her voice also became colder, 'do you really want to do this? It's been four thousand years since we last saw each other, and all you want to do is tell me off on something? I wouldn't be here if not for him.'

'It was reckless to bring someone else here with you. To let someone know of anything related to you. He calls himself a vampire, but he knows nothing of our struggle. He's a cunning man, he'll use you for his own ends before dispatching you. Why should I entrust you to him?'

She closed her eyes, trying to contain herself. 'I entrusted myself to him. I'm a grown woman, in case you don't remember. He has done more for me in the brief time that I've known him than you've done in decades.'

The hand holding her right shoulder retracted and moved beside her cheek. Her right side lowered, and her mother's fingers closed on her chin, rotating her head. _That's her,_ she thought, looking at her in the eyes. Her mother's face hadn't changed one bit. Not even the expression. It was tense, caught up in her fear. A fear that she could only express as anger. 'How dare you?' Valerica asked, peering into her eyes. 'I gave up everything I cared about to protect you that fanatic you call a father! Not only you escape your haven and return to him, but you also tell me that I haven't done anything for you?'

'Yes, my father is a fanatic. He's… changed. But he's still my father. And you, a schemer, are still my mother. You're my parents.' The jaws were clenching even more. 'I understand you're more unsentimental than I am, but how can you not understand how that makes me feel?'

'If you'd only open your eyes…' There were blazed of desperation flashing in her mother's eyes. 'The moment your father discovers your role in the prophecy, that he needs your blood, you'll be in terrible danger. He will be prepared to do anything to capture you. Can you still care for someone like that?'

Serana felt a strange smile coming to her lips. 'Yes…' she said, almost giggling. 'Of course I can. And aside from that, what did you do? You sealed me away from everything I cared about, from the entire world. You never asked me anything about my opinion, you never informed me of your plan, you never even considered discussing if it was the best course of actions. You expected me to follow blindly. I'm just a pawn. A pawn that will help my father defy the Sun and a pawn that will help you defy my father. Both of you are obsessed with your paths, and even though your ends may be different, the means you have used are the same.' She swallowed the thick saliva that had gathered in her mouth, feeling hot tears forming on the sides of her eyes. 'You know what's interesting? I had my own agenda, too. I wanted us to be a family again. But at this point I don't know if we can ever have that. Maybe we don't deserve that kind of happiness. Maybe it isn't for us. Nevertheless, now we have to stop my father, before he goes too far. And you have to help us.'

'Giving us the Scroll would make for a good start.'

Serana ripped her chin out of her mother's fingers and turned her head abruptly to her left side. When her eyes fixed on the position where the voice had come from, her memories quickly helped form the exact shape out of the darkened figure in front of her. _Azrael._ The handle of the longsword and the upper limb of the bow stuck out from behind him, and the vaguely round shape suggested he had the hood on. The continuous, wide shape of the lower part of his body signaling the presence of the cloak. _It's him._ The voice was his, the figure was his. Even the feeling he aroused in her were exactly his.

'You've kept your word,' she heard her mother say from behind her. Her voice went back to cool and composed, as it was when talking to strangers. 'I'm surprised.'

Azrael scoffed, as if amused. He stepped out of the shadows and stood in the diffused, violet light. ' _Oligopiste_ ,' he muttered quietly, but his deep voice carried the word.

 _What?_ Serana did a quick roundup of every word she knew that sounded similar, but that was new. 'What did you say?'

'It's ancient dunmeri dialect. Man, or woman, of little faith, translating literally.'

Her mother's other hand slid away from her other shoulder upon sensing that she would remain in that seated position without her help. Serana focused on Azrael for a moment longer, trying to reconstruct everything that might have transpired while she was out. He didn't have any signs of interest on him, and there was no suggestion as to what he had done in the meantime. She searched her memories, looking for something that she had heard and remembered even while she was fainted, but there wasn't anything. Having fed so recently, those stranger vampiric powers were slumbering and impossible to be called upon.

She could nonetheless sense a sort of connection between him and her mother. _They are similar, indeed,_ she told herself, recalling the words they had exchanged just a moment before. Azrael was straightforward to the point of being tactless most of the time, but her mother had lived at the court for a very long time, and even considering that she had remained alone all that time, she couldn't fathom her having lost her clever talk, which seemed so tactful and poisonous at the same time. _You've kept your word,_ she had told him. _I'm surprised._ It had been very direct, in the way that she would have said something to her or her husband. _They have already talked lengthily, and she has decided that she likes him but has to distrust him_. Serana remembered that her mother often said that very thing, that she liked someone but didn't trust them. That seemed to be case in point.

'I'll repeat, Valerica,' said Azrael, his voice vibrating but empty of all emotion as usual. 'Give us the Scroll.'

'Your intentions are still unclear to me, Elf, but I see no choice but trust you.' Her eyes were fixed intently into the blackness of the Dunmer's hidden face. Such a long time had gone by without her feeding that it wasn't impossible for her enhanced vision to be powerful enough to see underneath the shadow. 'You have defeated the Keepers, and that proves your strength. Now prove your dedication. My daughter strongly argues that you can be trusted, and even though she gave very mixed signs when you appeared, I have no choice but trust her. '

Serana turned her head sharply around, locking her eyes in her mother's ones. _Mixed signs? What are you up to?_ She could not decipher the tone in which she had said the sentence, because there was a cryptic note to it that was usual in her speech, but seemed to have a different meaning altogether in the present context. _If that was your way of telling him something I should have missed…_ That option could have only been true if there was a substantial bond between the two, however, which seemed improbable. Still, Azrael seemed to have bonded with her father fairly quickly. There was no doubt that when he wanted to, he could present himself in a way that made the others person lower their defenses. _Remarkable, considering how inaccessible he is himself._

Her mind, however, had gone on a tangent as if often did. The strange thing was still her mother's tone. She had risen to her feet and stood tall behind her, although not even her height and her pride combined could not stand Azrael's towering presence. Her mother strongly relied on making the other person feel ill at ease, using her surroundings, speech and every means she knew to achieve it. The power game, that once, was completely flipped. He had control. _I doubt if she is even considering the possibility of me taking his side in case of a fight,_ Serana wondered, but unable to find an answer for herself. There was the creeping sensation in her body and the associated thoughts that drew a very clear line. Her mother was her past, while Azrael was her future. _It's absurd,_ she judged, casting the thought away.

'Good,' said Azrael. 'And the Scroll is with you, I presume.'

'Yes,' her mother replied, looking for a moment to her left as if averting her gaze. 'I kept if safe here, in this fortress. I thought nothing in the world could reach me, whereas I was proven wrong.' She cast a glance in Serana's direction. 'I really whish you had never freed her, and my husband might have succumbed to his madness before being in a position to drag the whole world along with him.'

Serana felt a quiver of anger running across her body. She did a quick check on her body and found it restored enough to be able to stand. She dragged her legs near her and put both hands on the ground. 'You're saying,' she said, 'that you wished me to have remained there?'

'Well,' she said, 'I was hoping that, even if that were to happen, you wouldn't had returned to your father of your own free will. I thought I had made if clear you shouldn't have trusted anyone.'

'Valerica…' Azrael sneered mirthlessly, before Serana could think of something to say. 'Skepticism practiced poorly is the beginning of faith, nor its downfall. I have walked on Nirn for half a century and I have learned it. You have been around for eight times that timespan, so I should think you knew it too.'

Serana turned towards her mother. _A spiteful remark,_ she predicted, knowing her character all too well. You could not challenge her intellectual abilities and walk out of the room without repercussions. However, her face was tense but molded by a strange kind of surprise. _Is she… impressed?_ She traced back her reasoning, but could find but one thread that led her here. _If she was talking merely out of tension and he called her to reason, that she would have that reaction._ Nevertheless, it was extremely rare to see that look on her face. A mixture of incredulity and gruesome satisfaction crept into Serana's chest.

Her mother turned towards her. Now that they were both standing, they were about the same height. 'You might have chosen a wise man yet, Serana,' she said, and now the cryptic expression was shimmering in her eyes and not merely in her words.

That little game she was playing was annoying her. It was one of those things she did to demonstrate her intellectual superiority. 'I didn't choose anyone,' she replied sharply, feeling a sense of bitterness.

Valerica's eyebrows furrowed and her lips twisted in a semblance of a smile. She turned halfway around. 'Didn't you?' she said, tittering ever so slightly. She turned completely, and stepped in the great archway's direction, the one that led deeper into the fortress. 'Come on, both of you.'

Serana waited a little while still before forging onwards. She wanted to stay at some distance from her for a while. _Yes, I have only just seen her again after all that time, but that is what I feel like doing._ She obviously found it strange, but she trusted her gut. There was nothing more that they should say to each other, for the time being. _Well, she certainly hasn't anything to say. She has been stuck in this place since I was sealed away._ Now that she was far enough, she took a step forward, looking around. The great walls of the fortress where she had taken refuge were darker than the Castle's ones, and slightly opaque. The archway led to something that looked akin to an inner courtyard. The Cairn, despite everything, bore a striking similarity to the outer world.

She had just taken a couple of steps when she caught Azrael's shape on her left with the corner of her eyes. She turned in his direction, seeing that he had lengthened his long strides even further to reach her. _The concept alone is strange,_ she thought, reflecting briefly on it. _He made an effort to come close to me._ It wasn't the first time it had happened and she knew it wasn't just for the sake of it that he had done that, but it was still humane in some way. _He has been somewhat more humane since last night._

'How are you feeling?' he asked, in barely more than a whisper. He probably didn't wish Valerica to hear him clearly.

 _That's sweet of you,_ she thought with a sting of irony. Again, he was asking if what he had done hadn't resulted in any harm and wasn't asking out of pleasure. 'I am,' she said, beaming faintly his way. In spite of all the irony, she felt truly grateful. He had saved her life. 'I couldn't thank you then, I might as well do that now.' A lonely thought crossed her mind, and brought a sense of fear. 'Did…' she hesitated, and took a deep breath before continuing. 'Did my mother tell you the rest of the Prophecy? The Daughter of Coldharbour and the rest?'

'She did. I had to deceive her, however.'

 _That explains a lot…_ she thought. _She called him a cunning man._ Her mother was proud of her ability to see through practically anyone, and she had apparently failed to see through him. On the other hand, Azrael had probably revealed his deceit as soon as it was unnecessary to carry it further. That had created the atmosphere of distrust, since there was a precedent in which one of the two had lied to the other, but also that strange bond. Upon the reveal of the deception, and following the outburst that had mother had probably had, both of them had set the score to zero. They had recognized one another as logical, rational people, and that had induced a sense of respect. _My mother probably warned me of him because she didn't think I was able to withstand his manipulation._

There was something else preying on her mind, however. 'Azrael… When we were out of Dimhollow Crypt, you came very close to understanding the secret yourself, but I refused to give you the final piece. I know I could have done it later, but I didn't. Well, I…'

'Are you asking me if I'm angry with you?'

She couldn't keep her eyes on him for longer, and so she moved them briefly away, gazing at the sky, before coming back to him. She nodded, sensing a clench in her throat that would have made it difficult to talk.

Azrael turned his head forwards, in the general direction of her mother, but his movement had been slow. He wasn't looking into any physical place, but rather inside his own mind. 'No,' he said. 'I do think that it wasn't the best course of action, since I would have probably reassessed something if I had known. I understand why you did that, however.'

That was a heavy weight off her chest. She suspected of having kept it there for a time while also repressing the very thought of asking him in fear it would have broken the fragile bond that was seemingly building between them. _In that, I am probably superior to him._ The Dunmer noticed all sorts of patterns, regularities and sometimes had a semblance of a sixth sense that bordered on premonition or clairvoyance. He abstracted everything into ideas and concepts and played around with them. _But you can't conceptualize a connection, can you?_ He probably had his ways of guessing, but they were bound to be in some way inferior. _This once, I'm sure._ The most likely way he had was of abstracting his own state and what he could guess of hers and combine the knowledge. But there was now a problem. The knowledge he had was abstract. It took effort to apply it anew to reality. _I understand without moving an inch from reality._

She could definitely feel the bond between them. _It is the strangest thing that in dealing with something for whom cold reason and hard rationality are very high in his values, the connection should be this irrational._ And that was something she considered true, because there was very little that rationally could draw them together. They were very different people, with different priorities, and all they had in common was a goal. _That's superficial, though,_ she thought. There were probably a lot more similarities that she failed to see. But regardless, something else was linking them. _The path,_ she thought, remembering Elisif's metaphor. She had probably peaked into his world just enough for him to start feeling comfortable with her presence. He was now weaving the threads of his world around her, so that the outside world could do her no harm.

She also did her part in that mutual connection. Ever since the night that had just gone by, out on the Castle's entrance, the sense of fear that she had towards him had progressively faded. She was under the impression that she had finally seen the monster that was hiding inside Azrael, awake and alive in all its ghastly might. But once she had seen it, she had gradually become acquainted to it. The beast snapped his jaws, but never at her. Monsters are simple, they either like you or they don't. Now it was very clear who Azrael really was. He was a monster, who had built a dungeon of frost to keep the beast in check. She had ceased to fear the monster, and now his coldness was visible for what it really was: his natural way of treating himself. And now she felt something, something stronger than her, that pulled her closer to that ravenous monstrosity, that vicious fiend. _There is something immensely enticing about that darkness._ She repeated the words silently, because they weren't all hers. Elisif had used them before her. _She had seen it, too. A monster. The never-ending darkness that sleeps within him._

She felt a sharp noise coming from her side. _Azrael,_ she thought, because there was nothing beside her that could have made that sound. Her eyes darted to the source, which she had already hypothesized before even seeing it. _The sword._ The Dunmer had grabbed the sword and had drawn it a few inches upwards, ready to bring it by his side. _But what happened?_ He had stopped, and was looking in front of him. She didn't remember any other sounds, but she had fed recently. The powers which had helped her before now were unreachable.

She turned her eyes where Azrael's ones were directed. The first thing that caught her attention was her mother, who was looking in the exact same way. She too had her hand close to her dagger. _Where are they looking at?_ she wondered, thinking that it might have helped in determining what was happening. They were both looking upwards, to the sky. Something akin to a flash of light blazed into her mind. _The Dragon…_

A strong sound reached her ears. A tremor shook the ground, and the vibration were strong. A fixed whistle filled her ears, as it had done before, but it was less important. This once she had something more definite to pay attention to. A dark outline in the sky, that seemed to get bigger and bigger each second before she could try and guess how large it actually was.

'It's Durnehviir…' her mother whispered. 'He's here. Defend yourself!'

A whine came from her side immediately after, almost overlapping with her mother's words. Azrael had drawn his sword. The Dragon's black frame was become bigger and more defined. It waved its wings with strength, and the lilac light shone through his tattered wings. _He said he had crashed against the archway…_ She half-closed her eyes, thinking. 'Azrael,' she called him, stepping towards him, 'did you not say that he had fallen to the ground?'

'Two options.' His voice was somewhat absent, since he was focusing intently on the Dragon. 'Either he survived the crash, or there is something more sinister at work that keeps him alive or even brings him back to life every time he is defeated.' After that, she saw him stiffen for a moment, and his sword-arm stopped halfway through a movement. 'That's how he came here…' he whispered.

She wasn't following. When he stopped like that, he had often reached a new conclusion from the analysis of knowledge he already had. 'What do you mean?'

'Later,' he said, finishing the movement with the hand holding the sword. 'Now focus. The Dragon will target either you or your mother first.'

That was the reasoning he had been following all that time, in parallel with what she was asking. He was probably observing the trajectory of the Dragon's flight to try and identify his intentions. _Still, how did he understand that?_ 'Why me or my mother?'

He extended his left leg away from her and shifted the weight on it, casting one last glance in her direction. 'Focus, I said.' He turned his head around, and fixed his gaze on the Dragon.

 _Fine…_ she thought, recollecting her thoughts and trying to think somewhat clearly even amidst all the tension. There wasn't much time left to think, but that shouldn't have prevented her from using it. _He's going to come for me or my mother,_ she repeated silently, using it to guide her senses towards relevant information. Her mother was a few feet in front of her, wielding a globe of crimson light in one hand and looking up towards the monster. _She's exposed,_ Serana thought, seeing how much further away she was from the two of them. Looking up at the Dragon, she guessed she had less than five seconds. And even then, she didn't know what he was going to do.

The vampiric instincts awakened faintly. The beating of her heart seemed to become stronger and lose regularity, while a flush of heat filled her whole body. Her senses sharpened, but not even close to the degree that they had done the time before. It had been a very short timespan since she had last drank blood, and there wasn't any strong bloodthirst that came along with the awakening of the body, which was weaker itself. The instincts and the gruesome thoughts didn't take over her mind, and she was still well aware of her tension and though process. Her eyesight was pulsing, but it wasn't taking on the bloody red shades that it often did.

 _Good, I've got but moments…_ The strain she felt was incredible. The reflex that she had upon thinking that she had only moments to think and enact something was to freeze and mindlessly hope for the best. _Give in… It's so easy, and free of any pain._ However, in spite of how safe is seemed, it really wasn't safe. _Freeze,_ a voice in the back of her mind told her. She resisted, bringing all the strength of her desperation in her mind and trying to make it work. _Freeze._ But she would not. A flood of energy was surging through her body, so much that it could have been used to truly make her stay still. _No, never._ She looked at Azrael with the corner of her eye. He stood straight, in a defensive stance, with his gaze fixed on the threat. The strength of his concentration seemed to irradiate from him. _For once, like him. Calm._

Moments, not much more. The Dragon was swooping down. _That's what he's doing._ He was going to scratch the ground with the claws. Her mother would have probably been able to avoid some of the impact, but not the claws themselves. She might have been quick, but she wasn't in a position to save herself at this point. _It's too late for her, unless I help her._ Still, the chances of her getting hurt were very high. Too high to make her completely comfortable. It was her intuition telling her that. She wasn't able to exactly predict the trajectory of the hit as Azrael probably could. After having seen him fight multiple times, she had understood that he managed to calculate where the blows would land while they were still in mid-air and react accordingly. She wasn't able to do that, but she could guess the final result.

The Dragon had moved and had extended his claws downwards. Her mother was trying to get out of the way with a leap, but she wouldn't have made it. The Dragon would have gone to his right to follow her past her defensive movement. She had to do the counter-intuitive thing and push her back in the original path of the monster, hoping that he would predict her mother's own movements but not her own.

She knew what to do, and regardless, the time to think was over. The huge shape of the Dragon darkened most of the sky in front of them, and he had spread his frayed wings wide open to control the descent. He was indeed turning to catch Valerica upon her landing. Serana bolted ahead, arriving slightly after the Dragon to the right place. The dense shade of the monster descended over her. She threw an arm around her mother's waist and raised her feet from the ground, pushing Valerica along with her. A scream reached her ears, of pain and anger, not fear; she temporarily didn't pay attention to it, looking at the ground on which they were going to land. Her mother touched the terrain first with her shoulder, while she brought her forearm forward to avid falling on her face.

She hit the ground. No dust raised from the sterile earth of the Cairn.

Once the movement had stopped, she could quickly put everything in its place, because she wasn't sure of everything that happened. _The Dragon hit my mother,_ she decided, _and the scream was hers._ It was obvious from the voice. There was no time to waste in that moment. The shadow of the Dragon had moved away from them, which meant that he had flied away and wouldn't be able to recommence an attack for a while. _We have to do something._ Her mother couldn't fight any longer, if only because it was best she didn't take another hit.

She put her hands on the ground, pushed, stood to her feet and turned around, making out Azrael's shape in between the violet shades. 'Azrael!' she called out. 'I'm bringing my mother to safety. I'll be back in a moment!' She skipped breaths, and her heart was still beating irregularly.

Azrael moved the blade by his side and moved his head in her direction. 'No,' he answered. 'Hide. Leave the Dragon to me.'

'No, I want to help. I won't run away now.'

Azrael turned towards her completely. His eyes were blazing, and their lights could be easily made out under his hood. When he fought, they always lit up. 'Please,' he said, deeply.

Serana turned around and slid her hands under her mother's armpits. She tugged upwards, feeling that she was helping her as much as she could. She had yet to see the severity of the wound, but whatever the case it didn't seem to be causing too much pain. She was also very strong-willed, which had to be taken into account. When she had made her stand, she grabbed her arm and threw it across her own shoulders. 'We have to move,' she whispered.

'I know,' she groaned. 'Just point me in the right way.' She was keeping her head down, and she wasn't looking where she would be going.

Serana wondered whether the bitter tone in her voice was only because of the wound or also the frustration of having to be helped by someone. _And for once,_ she thought, quickening her pace and looking for a suitable place to rest, _her independent streak doesn't match Azrael's one._ However, there was one detail in what he had told her. He had not told her, 'Do as I say,' he had said, 'Please.' _I don't think I've ever heard him say that, and surely not in a situation like this._ She found the place where she would head towards. An alcove in the otherwise straight wall that surrounded the courtyard. _Or a bone yard, more accurately._

She walked onwards, casting glances at her mother. She could see a sliver of the wound. Or wounds, more accurately, since there were two large cuts that ran along her body from the upper abdomen to the upper chest. One had was near her waist and drew upwards, the other one was roughly between her breasts. The armor had been greatly damaged, but Serana couldn't guess the severity of the wound. The sure thing was that very little blood was flowing. _If she hasn't fed in four thousand years, I'd be surprised if there is any left, actually._

She listened to the noises, which were her only indications of how the battle was going. There were strong, gust-like sounds that permeated the air. _The Dragon's still flapping his wings,_ she thought, _which in turn means he hasn't landed yet._ The sounds were close, though. Very close. He wasn't far, and the frequency of the beats was quite high. _That could mean…_ She considered every possibility for a moment, but she couldn't find anything. If he was landing, he would have opened his wings to slow down. _He's certainly going to fight, but to do that he'd need to get closer._

There was a stronger, dull sound. She bent a little to the left, because a tremor strong enough to make her lose her balance had ran through the ground. _Of course. He was landing._ He was beating his wings stronger to descend on the ground more slowly. She didn't know whether he had landed and was going after Azrael of the two of them. She glanced at the alcove, and it wasn't far. _I need to keep my ears open._ If she as much as heard the hint of a grumbling sound, she would have to be prepared to dodge the inevitable stream of flames that would come out of the Dragon's maws.

' _Ni Fen Krif_ ,' Azrael said.

' _Piraak nid Miiraad,_ ' growled the Dragon.

There was a low rumbling. Serana felt all her muscles freezing and stiffening, but something told her it wasn't the anything she should worry about. That sound, albeit similar, had very little to do with the specific growling the Dragon had made when breathing fire before. The sound was followed the a sharper one, the one of the monster's teeth closing and grinding against one another. _He tried to bite him._ A chilling fear immediately took hold of her. _Did he kill him?_ She turned abruptly to the other side, her eyes searching for one thing and one thing only. When she saw that Azrael was alive and intact and a few meters away from the Dragon, she breathed easier for a moment. She returned to her objective. They were close to the alcove.

Her mother groaned and tugged the arm she had over her shoulders. 'What in the Mace of Soul's name are you doing?' she said. 'Leave me here and go help him!'

'No, mother.' In between Azrael and her mother, two utter skeptics, she almost felt that her blind faith made her look naive. However, none of the two could understand the degree of conviction it yielded. 'We're not to intervene in that fight. Somehow, we're better letting it unfold is it should.'

Surprisingly enough, her mother didn't reply. Probably because of the pain, but it was remarkable nonetheless. They had reached the alcove, and Serana bent her knees and turned around, slowly depositing her mother's body down on the ground. Once again, she proved very collaborative and aided her whatever motion she suggested. _She's always been strong, and this eternity of solitude can only have tempered her even further._ When she had sat her against the inner wall of the nook did she decide to turn back and look at the fight.

She quickly assessed the situation. The Dragon was very keen on killing Azrael, but the latter wasn't so ready to attack the other. Now that she could take a better look at the Dragon, she saw that it wasn't only his wings that were tattered. His scales were scarred and filled with scabs of rotten bone. He had horns on his head, but some were broken and deformed as if consumed by rot. The wings, usually membranous in other Dragons, were thinned to the point of tearing in some parts. His whole figure resembled the Cairn better than many other things they had seen could. _I wonder how long he's been here._ It was quite easy to guess from his appearance that it had been a long while. There was nothing about that Dragon in particular that could suggest why Azrael seemed so reluctant to attack. _If I know him, he could have already struck a number of times already, but he hasn't._

There was something going on. They had talked to each other, but she had no idea of what they had said. _It's Azrael, isn't it?_ He could read their language, speak their language, understand it and he communicated with Dragons, even. And he, who had no regret in killing anyone, was now showing signs of reluctance in attacking one of those beasts. Alongside the consuming curiosity, there was something else coming to the surface in her mind. Something hot, annoying. Indignation. _He always scolds me for not telling him what I know, but then he's the one with the most secrets, isn't he?_ All that was quieted quickly by the immediacy of the events, but she felt it all quite clearly.

Azrael twirled his sword around both sides, just once, making a hissing noise. He was looking in the eyes of the Dragon. _There's some game going on._ He wasn't only reluctant, but he was deceiving the monster. _He's faking defenselessness._ But when someone did that, it was to unleash his most powerful weapon at the right time. _And which one's yours?_ The Dragon had now stopped advancing, and was staring at his adversary in return.

' _Hi Fent Ag_ ,' grumbled the Dragon, abruptly spreading his wings. He waved both with strength, grazing the ground as they finished their movement.

Serana brought one hand in front of her eyes and turned her head to the side to cover herself from the strong gust. She glimpsed at Azrael, who stumbled back himself a few feet. The Dragon had risen in the air, and was now a few feet above the terrain. He pounded his wings against, rising even higher and sending another flurry their way. This time around, however, Azrael did something different. He let the air hit him on the chest, and he backpedaled again, but this time he was with his face directly straight towards the Dragon.

' _Joor Zah Frul!_ '

She couldn't see for a moment. The light blinded her eyes, but she didn't move them away. She desperately wanted to see what had happened, although that was denied to her for a short while. _I've already heard that sound, haven't I?_ The memory reconstructed quickly, and the feeling of remembered pain aided her. _Yes, when I was wounded. He screamed those words and…_ She blinked three times in a row, very quickly, wanting to see but still incapable to. _And then the Dragon fell down, demolishing the archway. That's what happened. That's the weapon he was keeping hidden._

Her vision cleared gradually, but as soon as she was able to make out the Dragon's outlines she understood what had happened. The monster was falling back on the ground. She braced herself, and rightly so, for the tremor that shook the earth when the massive body of the Dragon landed almost threw her off balance. Her vision blurred and for a moment she felt like she was drowning, but it ended very quickly. Behind her, Valerica hissed angrily. When she managed to stabilize, the monster was on the ground and Azrael was nimbly dashing towards it. _He's probably thinking that it was way too easy._ He had his sword firmly in hand and his posture already hinted at the strike he was planning.

The Dragon was still encircled in a strange light blue, opaque aura. He seemed to have been sapped of all its strength, although the frantic movements of the tail suggested otherwise. He roared, but there was so much fear in that sound that Serana sensed some of the fear that was gripping her fade away. _He's weak._ He tried to raise his head, but Azrael was already close. The blade move quickly, disappearing from view for a split second. There was a cutting sound before it reappeared.

The Dunmer leapt forward, to the side of the Dragon's head. Serana saw his left hand moving to his right side and towards the handle of the blade, the fingers closing in on the grip and bringing it further back. _Where is he aiming? The eye, of course._ He thrust the blade forward, and the edge seemed to spark with deep purple flashes of lightning before disappearing into the soft surface of the monster's pupil.

The Dragon's scream was of intense pain now, and Serana felt it ripping her very flesh from her bones. She felt how much he was suffering on her own skin. He continued to shriek, at intervals, not able to sustain one long sound because of the immense pain. She noticed that Azrael was shifting the blade, moving it in all directions inside the eye. _Clever. He's destroying the insides of his head this way._ She felt slightly torn. On one hand she wanted him to continue, but on the other was almost inclined to ask him to stop that torture. _Although it isn't torture. He's killing him._ More inconsequential pieces of information were gathering. _He understands, reads and speaks their language, but he seems also proficient at killing them._ She didn't know how and why those two things went together.

The screams slowly quieted down, and the movements of the Dragon became gradually less frantic. Among his cries, there was one sound that he kept repeating. ' _Dovahkin…_ ' The tail stopped moving and the wings were almost motionless. She heard a prolonged, repulsive sound that made her turn towards Azrael again. He had pulled the blade out of the Dragon's eye. She noticed that when he had done that, the body had stopped moving. The Dunmer took two steps away from the carcass, keeping the sword by his side. He seemed to be waiting for something.

Serana had become aware of her breathes again, which were quite heavy. When the monster had stopped moving, the tension had largely subsided. _But it seems it's not over, is it?_ Azrael was still there, motionless. _He's probably waiting for something._ There was no way he was just commemorating the fallen monster. He had seemed to have some reservation towards killing it, but he wasn't one to spend time on a dead enemy. _Besides, it seems he had already done it. So why this one?_ It was an allegedly special Dragon, but there was something that didn't fit.

Her eyes caught something happening on the side, on the Dragon's carcass, and she looked. _What in the…_ She blinked and looked harder, because she was hardly able to comprehend what was happening. The scales of the Dragon were shimmering. They were losing thickness, as if evaporating. There was also a strong purple light illumining them. _They're different things, however. Where does the light come from?_

'I was wondering how jealous you were of your guardian,' screamed Azrael.

She didn't understand. She looked at him, and noticed he was looking upwards. Something in her mind put together that he was looking in the exact spot where the bright purple light illumining the Dragon's corpse might have come from. She looked upwards, and there was a large, lozenge-shaped crystal hovering high above the carcass. _What in…_ She felt her jaw trembling. 'Mother…' she whispered, 'do you know what that is?'

'It's an Ideal Master, Serana,' she answered, and despite her collected tone the surprise could still be clearly heard.

'Listen to me,' Azrael continued. 'You can't intimidate me. I will get out of this place either with or without your consensus. Likewise, I could take your servant's soul if I wanted. I suggest we strike a bargain.'

There was something alike a tremor coming from the crystal. _I wonder if we should take that as a yes, or if they are speaking just to Azrael without us being able to hear it._ The Ideal Master had no clear form, in the end, so it was unlikely that it could even replicate a voice. It was even more unlikely that he would do it when he could just communicate through thought.

'I will relinquish your servant's soul for this one time, in exchange for two things.' Whatever that tremor had meant, whether it had been just that or he had heard their voices, he seemed to have understood the meaning perfectly. 'First, you will free the woman you know as Valerica. She will be able to come and go from this place as she pleases without you trying to stop her. Second, I would like a brief moment with your servant. Just to talk.'

Another tremor came from the crystal. Serana saw Azrael stepping back further still from the Dragon's carcass. There was little doubt that he was referring to him when talking about their servant. She felt her mind storming with so many questions that she had a hard time focusing on what she was seeing, even if the surprise was so great. Her mother, just behind her, was dead silent.

'We have a deal,' Azrael said.

The scales of the Dragon ceased shimmering. The vapor that had seemed to rise from the for that time was reabsorbed inside the solid confines of its mass. The violet light, in turn, became stronger and brighter. Serana again felt the need to turn away, but she couldn't bring herself to do it. She wanted to see. The bright increased in size and intensity, and even Azrael had covered his eyes on the sidelines. The carcass trembled, shaken as if by strong gusts, before disappearing in a flash of light. _What…_ She blinked, but the monster was simply gone. Her eyes darted above, but the crystal was gone too.

'Serana,' Azrael said, without turning. He was looking towards the door that led out of the bone yard. 'Take the Scroll and join me outside when you're ready.'

'I will,' she said. Her voice almost faded as she finished the sentence. For some reason, she had gone through a moment when the underlying feeling of attraction towards him had surged. She couldn't help but look at him as he slid his blade back between his shoulders and strode towards the door with long and silent steps. There seemed to be an infinite grace in his movements.

The spell was broken as he disappeared from view.

Her feelings faded quietly, and she had a clear mind the moment after they had vanished. She had sensed everything clearly, and there wasn't any lingering confusion. She turned towards her mother, who had risen to her feet in the time being. _Look at the things she managed to put in here,_ Serana thought, noticing that the alcove was in fact a small laboratory. There was an alchemy set beside the wall and a lot of different plants. The most abundant was the eerie husk that she had seen growing everywhere in the Cairn. Valerica had reached for one of the walls and was leaning on it to remain standing.

'How bad is the wound, mother?' she asked.

'I'm fine,' she said. 'I will have to stay here until whatever you do proves successful, either way. It will have time to heal and I will have time to repair the armor.' She was heading towards a big chest in the back of the alcove. 'I don't doubt the Ideal Masters will keep their word, so I may indeed be safe for some time. However, I'm only safe as long as you carry out your mission.'

Serana looked at the chest and decided that it was long enough to contain an Elder Scroll. There was no lock, despite it looking quite elaborate. Valerica slid her hands under the cover and opened the box, revealing the unmistakable roll that could only be an Elder Scroll. The paper was bright and spotless in spite of the years spent in the Soul Cairn and everything else it had gone through. Nothing else could maintain that air of perfection after so much time.

'I truly detest parting with it,' her mother said. Serana smiled weakly, thinking that she hadn't been able to repress that last judgment. 'I can only think what your father would be able to do if he gets his hands on this. But enough about him,' she said. She put a hand on the sort of stone desk that stuck out of the back of the alcove and turned towards Serana. 'Tell me how you got here.'

'Well, I remembered the words you had told me when you left and after spending some time discarding every solution that I could come up with I asked Azrael. He figured it out in less than a few seconds. He also commented that he liked you already because he thought the two of you were similar, to a degree.'

'Yes, we're quite alike,' her mother conceded. 'You know how much I loathe making judgments out of impressions and not facts, but I cannot deny that there is something I like about him. He's probably right in considering himself someone after my own spirit.' Her gaze turned more piercing, as if intently scanning for her daughter's reactions. 'What is he like?'

Serana smirked faintly. 'Intelligent, strong, curious, cold… Quite distant, overall. There have been several times when he was hurtful, but overall I like being with him. He makes me feel safe, and…' She looked for the right word.

'Alive,' said Valerica simply. 'Don't be surprised, it's the exact way your father made me feel in the beginning. There is some solace in the fact that, were he to go mad, he wouldn't become a fanatic but merely a languid dreamer caught in his own deliriums.'

'How do you know?' It was quite an accurate description. As she had noted all the way back in their journey back from Dimhollow, there were moments when he seemed to cleave every contact he had with reality and just allow himself to daydream. _Daydreaming._ He had said so himself.

Her mother gave a weak, clever smirk in return. 'I just know it.' She turned around, grabbing the Scroll with both hands, but it was clear she was going to say something else and that she had rather make a pause before saying it. Despite being a generally no-nonsense person, sometimes she couldn't help but be dramatic. 'The same way I know that he reciprocates your affection, to a degree.'

Serana felt her face flushing with heat. _Why did this had to happen just a few hours past feeding?_ Her cheeks had probably taken on the faintest reddish tint that could give away her feelings. 'I know,' she said, 'although I often have a hard time seeing it. It sounds… impossible, but he seems to purposefully flee from the things he grows affectionate towards,' she said slowly, trying to put in one thought everything that suspected.

Valerica shrugged. 'There are people who do that, yes. Give him some space and the time to close that gap by himself, and he will.'

'But will he?'

Valerica composed expression seemed to slowly but radically melt into one that expressed all the warmth she had inside and that she insisted on hiding. The skin on her cheekbones wasn't tense, for once, and nothing in her posture was stiff. She slowly walked forward, towards her, holding the Scroll in her left hand. When she came near her, she raised her right and softly caressed her daughter's cheek. 'Oh, Serana,' she said slowly. 'By some miracle you have neither my nor your father's pride. But don't let your meekness distort your vision. Someone like him requires someone he could trust, that could stay by his side with no envy or resentment and with sincere regard for his unappreciated capabilities. That's you, my daughter. It could very well be you.' Her smile turned somewhat mischievous. 'And all the men I've ever known also appreciate if a woman is beautiful. And that's you too. On this there are no such things as doubts to be had.'

Serana chuckled at that last part, but she hadn't paid much attention to it. Her mind had been swept away by what had come beforehand. She could not reconcile what others said of her to what she felt inside, because from that vantage point she saw things of herself that others could not. She couldn't fathom how anyone else could think so well of her, when things she considered rotten were flowing into her mind. _They'll all love me until they see what's really inside me._ That was the recurrent thought. Her actions might have told a story, but her thoughts told another one entirely. And she didn't want anyone seeing into the latter, although she also longed for someone that could see it without judging her. _You're tired of swinging, aren't you?_ Azrael had said. Yes, she was tired.

Immediate proof of her doubts were the things she was thinking in that very moment. She was overwhelmed by her mother's compliment, and in part because it came from her. She felt a feeling of true joy, but that was tempered by a myriad of other things, things that she would have rather not felt and that made her feel bad. They were wrong things, wrong thoughts. She felt resentment. _Now? Did you really have to wait until now to tell that to me, didn't you, mother?_ The lightness and happiness for what had happened mixed with all the confusion and anger for how it had happened. And above that confused sea of good and bad, she observed and prayed with all her strength that nobody would ever manage to see what she was thinking.

Every vampire carries a monster inside. No matter how far one runs, the bestial core of instincts doesn't detach from it. It keeps one awake, it keeps him or her alive, but at what cost? _The very concept of a good vampire is the idea of a fool._ There was no good in being such a creature, and yet she desperately wanted to be one. She acted like she was, but she wasn't. She felt as if she was deceiving the whole world, but what else could she do? Show her true nature, and do evil in the process? Which one was the lesser evil? So far, deceiving the world seemed the answer, if anything because it was the thing that made her suffer less between the two. But no matter what happened, she had never felt like the woman her mother had just described to her. _But she's not blind._ She was confused.

She woke up from her reasoning when she felt something being put in her hand. Her eyes moved down, crossing her mother's gaze for a moment and then falling on the Scroll. The handle of the white roll was in her hand, where Valerica had put it. She closed her palm on it and brought her other hand to grab the other side. _Well, this one goes where the original one was._ She waited for her mother's hand to move away and then brought the Scroll to her back, placing it where the other one had stay for all the time of her concealment.

She raised her gaze to meet her mother's. 'Thank you,' she said. 'We will come back for you.'

Valerica smiled broadly. Serana couldn't remember her smiling like that. 'I know. I'll be waiting for you.' She glanced at the archway that led out of the bone yard. 'Your companion is probably waiting for you. Go, my daughter. I love you.'

Serana looked at her, surprised that she didn't have trouble recognizing that seemingly caring person in front of her. She didn't remember her mother having been like that ever. _Something has changed. I guess I knew that this affection was in her all along, but it's still new._ Her mouth was closed shut. She nodded and turned around, not finding the words and being unable to say anything.

Upon closer inspection, she was probably more confused than she usually felt, but she didn't feel as frustrated by it. She was fine with being confused. She walked towards the exit of the yard, away from her mother, and the world seemed to be imperceivably brighter. The violet hues of the Soul Cairn were a little less intimidating, and at the same time she thought the she could see everything more clearly. _Well, it could partly be because I know that we'll be out of here shortly._ But the details of the Cairn were momentary, and the feeling of lightness she felt was something unrelated to the place.

 _It's not only that everything seems clearer,_ she reasoned. _It's also that I'm looking around more._ When she had arrived in that place before, she was absorbed by all of her thoughts. _I didn't even notice the Dragon coming._ Now it was different. There was something that made her feel serene about that attention she managed to direct outwards, despite the fact that whatever she could look at was quite gruesome. The ground was littered with bones and white dust, and some larger piles of skeletons were amassed across the area, half covered and mixed with the barren terrain. She looked at the four walls that enclosed the place. _I wonder why this place is built like a fortress._ The Ideal Masters had shaped their land rather strangely.

Also, remembering of the Ideal Masters, she realized that the perfect memory of that purple crystal coming down from the sky wasn't going anywhere. It was merely waiting to be looked upon in greater detail. She had seen those crystals float around the place when they had come in, but she had never imagined that they could be something so significant. _And are those the Ideal Masters, or are those merely vessels of their power?_ Nevertheless, one had come to reclaim their servant. _Yes, to reclaim him. Because Azrael was doing something._ She remembered the beginning of the fight, when he had frozen briefly and had murmured to himself. _That's how he got in,_ he had said, or something similar. He must have understood something then. _And he played around Daedric entities._ _He was stealing their servant from them._

On that point, she was irremediably stuck. _How did he do that? What was even happening?_ There had been a sort of hidden struggle between the two of them. Both seemed to be able and inclined to take the Dragon for themselves. All she had to go on, however, was the visible part of the process. If the Ideal Master was the one projecting that violet light onto the Dragon's carcass, than it was Azrael who was causing the scales to shimmer and almost vaporize into smoke. _But again, how?_ Another thing that was added to the mystery. _Knows, reads and speaks the language of the Dragons; is knowledgeable or even an expert in killing them, and in capable of doing something to them after they die._ That amount of information couldn't lead her to a solution, but it could suggest a flaw in the questions she was asking. _It doesn't seem to be a problem on the lines of what he can do, but rather of who he is._

A word emerged from her memory upon running through all the data a second time. _Dragonborn._ It was how the people in Dragon Bridge had called him, or had implied him to be. She had no confirmation that this Dragonborn they had spoken of was Azrael, but the chances of the two not being the same person were slim. _The description that librarian made was very precise. It was Azrael. Dragonborn…_ She remembered the book she had left on the table in that very bookshop, "Legends of the Dragonborn". _If only I had read that instead of something else…_ Maybe some things would be clearer. She had never inquired further, because after Dimhollow she had hardly had any occasions to bring it up. _Except when he uses their magic, but I've almost become used to it._ She had seen him using a wide array of those invocations.

A voice, which was getting louder distracted her from her thoughts. _I had just celebrated my clarity, and I've been lost in thought again._ She stiffened when she heard the voice that was speaking. The language was hers, she could understand it too, but the timbre, the sound and almost everything else about it was completely unnatural. _It's the Dragon isn't it?_ She raised her eyes, and her sight confirmed her assumption. _And I just went on about the strange thing he has done. And here he is,_ she said to herself, seeing Azrael leaning against a pillar with his eyes fixed in the ones of the Dragon. _Talking amicably with the monster he has just slain._

'But they _Lo_ … Deceived me.' The monster was perched on a broken tower, with his large wings resting on the ground and the thick neck protruding forward. The scales were a bit whiter than she had assumed. The color of bone. 'They asked to guard her until her demise. But she was no _Joor._ '

' _Ni Fun Viir,_ ' said Azrael. 'They didn't tell you she was immortal, did they?'

' _Vahzah_. I only wish to return to Tamriel. Through countless souls, news of your triumph against the World Eater has reached even this place, Dovahkin. _Krosis, ni Mindok_. I couldn't know it was you.'

' _Vaat Orin Lot_. I wish to make my promise even greater. Once my mission has been completed, I will come back to you, Durnehviir, and I will free you. _Zu'u, Jun._ All the _Dovah_ are under my protection, and this holds true for you.'

The Dragon lowered his head to the ground, breaking the contact with Azrael's eyes. ' _Qahnaarin, Thuri._ ' He recollected his wings on his back. ' _Alduin mahlaan_ '.

Azrael pushed with his shoulders against the column and stood straight on his feet. ' _Alduin mahlaan._ '

The Dragon spread his wings in an abrupt movement. Serana braced herself, but the gusts must have flied parallel to his wings and not towards them. With a powerful beat of the membranous extensions, the monster rose from the dilapidated building. His neck curved to the left, where he clearly intended to head.

Serana stepped forward, almost to Azrael's side. 'Will you tell me what happened?'

'Expect so,' he answered, following the Dragon as it disappeared behind the high walls. 'But after we get out of here.'

* * *

A/N: The Ideal Masters appearing as a crystal occurred to me from something back in TES II:Daggerfall. If I remember correctly, you do speak with an Ideal Master in game and it appears as one of the life-sapping crystal seen around the Soul Cairn.

And for anyone wondering: "Oligopiste" is ancient greek, not dunmeri dialect.


	23. Chapter XXII: The Last Supper

Chapter 22: _The Last Supper_

* * *

Serana felt that the continuous, monotone buzz of the court members talking with the people directly beside or across them was the best thing she could have asked in order to concentrate. It was too regular and too uninteresting to claim her attention for too long, and now that she had been hearing it for at least half an hour, it didn't claim her attention at all. Her eyes didn't wander over the people sitting at the tables to search for whose voice was getting louder or lower. Not anymore. She had seen enough, and yet she struggled to understand.

 _Everything in its context,_ she told herself, and tried to reiterate every piece of information that she had at her disposal. The important thing was that they were inside Volkihar Keep, were certain rules applied. It was also an important occasion, because it was the night following the return of Azrael, who had brought both the Scrolls and had presented it to the Lord. Of course, they had found the Moth Priest blind. Harkon was furious, but had accepted to let Azrael take care of everything once again. _Everything went according to our plan,_ Serana thought. And if that was the case, what was missing?

Time doesn't flow normally in any Daedric realm, and the Soul Cairn didn't seem to be an exception. Azrael had told her that the time he had sensed to have gone by inside the Cairn was of five to six hours, and yet they had emerged long before sunrise. Only an hour or two had gone by in the world above. _Which makes the time my mother had waited even longer_ , Serana had thought. At least she had slept through all those centuries, but Valerica hadn't. Regardless, aside from the hushed comments made by the court members, their absence hadn't been a subject of major suspicion. Nobody understood how it was possible that their dear princess and her rescuer could get along after the latter's attempted betrayal, but nobody had yet dared bring those doubts over to either of them.

Their return was when the fun had began, in a manner of speaking. After a concise but decisive discussion, Serana and Azrael had agreed that it would have been safer for the two of them to stay separated for a while. He would have gone out of the Castle, pretending to search for the other Scroll. _Only the gods know what he's really been up to_. He was without Shadowmere, so his reach was fairly limited, but he had quite a few days ahead of him. It was plenty to go to Solitude and back comfortably. The thought wasn't the most welcome. Despite the tension between them having subsided significantly and despite the fact that, in the end, she had quite liked Elisif, the memories of that evening were printed with fire in her mind. _Jealousy. Great,_ she had reproached herself the first time the thought had come up. Sadly, it had not been the last, either.

And while jealousy was the subject, her decision to stay in the Keep seemed to have been very smart on her part. They had thought it would have been best for her to remain among the Court, with the double goal of not raising suspicion and of assessing the situation first-hand.

Serana had been quite ecstatic of how much Azrael had allowed her to have a say in their coordination. 'I haven't really got in touch with anyone here, beside from your father, so it would be best if you were to one to remain here. Besides, I am most effective out there than in here.' It wasn't as if he didn't treat her as a means to and end anymore, but it was evident that he did the same with himself. He calculated where the two of them could be placed to yield the maximum results, and stuck with that decision. 'You can always say no,' he had said, 'we are in a position to freely choose.'

There was one thing that she could have rather avoided, and that was splitting up with him in the first place. However, that was the one thing on which he had been inflexible. She understood why that was the case, and accepted it. She agreed to pretty much everything else he proposed. His proposition was that she would do for two weeks what she would have normally done without him, but with the promise that upon his return something would change. That was better than anything she could have hoped.

Nevertheless, staying away from him was strangely unsettling. She had taken up old habits again and had returned to her status of the affable, charming young lady that was well-liked by almost everyone. However, there would always be the one who ended the conversation on a cryptic note and would leave. At those times, she had to consciously stop herself turning around and saying Azrael's name aloud to ask him for clarification. At other times she would see a room that was familiar but that had something removed or added to it, but without being able to pinpoint what it was. And yet at others, she would emerge from her thoughts and find herself in the middle of the great hall, unaware of what was going on around her and wishing to know it.

There were times when she deliberately stopped, leaned against something and looked around in an attempt to see the world the way he did. She wasn't clueless about it. She had been with him for weeks, by then. Most people seemed to flounder around the world, seeing nothing more than their distorted minds allowed them to see. When she was with Azrael, she saw the great web, the weave of patterns, threads and meanings intertwining and allowing the one who witnessed it to see more than anyone could have ever hoped to. She looked and observed, and then she retreated in her room, thinking without ever stopping. Sometimes, she even managed to feel something, deep within, a hint of enjoyment; it was what he probably felt too, although surely melded with something darker and more malevolent.

Even ignoring the minor results that she managed to find by consistently sticking to that little habit, she made great progresses. She had never given too much weight on the banal fact that the court members told her things. She was the daughter of the Lord, so she was by definition out of any power struggle, and she was captivating, which made most people lower their barriers even further. By uniting all the fragments she gathered one person at a time, she could get a very clear image of what way the wind blew inside the Keep. _And I believe myself too innocent to have ever tried to use that information._ In truth, she had no way of using it until then. Now she had a way. She had to understand what would happen when Azrael came back.

The hardest element of all the court was, for reasons that were obvious to her now more than ever, her father. On top of the already mixed feelings she had towards him, there was now crushing sense of guilt that pervaded her when she was around him. _I'm betraying him. I know where my mother is and I'm not telling him. I know that Azrael is probably planning against him and I'm not telling him._ The series of thoughts always ended with the heavier. _I am plotting against him._ He had watched out against an attack against himself for all his life, for all those eons, and now the strike would come from where he would expect it less: his own daughter. His own flesh and blood.

The thing that contrasted the strongest with that feeling of culpability was the irritation caused by how much he seemed to be jealous of her. She had hardly talked to him in the timespan between returning with the Moth Priest and beginning their journey to the Soul Cairn, and she hadn't had the time to realize what feelings he truly harbored. He frequently made references to how much time she had spent with Azrael and how close they seemed. When she grew annoyed and asked him what was wrong with it, he sometimes shrugged and at others reminded her that he had been the enemy in a past not long gone. When the latter occurred, she merely needed to remind that he had been the one choosing to keep him alive, and the conversation ended there.

She knew it was hardly over, though. The number of times he had brought it up alone was suspicious, and from what she knew of her father she could guess that, in spite of appearances, that thing was eating away at him. Serana kept that card close to her chest, because it meant that Harkon now had some reservations towards Azrael. That had to be addressed, but she didn't feel like she could make any difference. However, those talks reminded her of how incredibly erratic her relationship with Azrael had been. _Not even three months ago, I wished him dead. And here I am, spying for him inside my own home while longing for him to come back to me._ In a way, she was searching that hard for information in order to please him. Her affection was changing and consuming her.

Her father had probably noticed it, and that was why he was so resentful. Serana had noticed that he always kept an eye on her ever since she had come back from the Soul Cairn. There were moments when delirious fantasies of him knowing what she'd been up to crept into her mind. However, it was impossible. He was just unsettled by Azrael and nothing more. _It's interesting that for him to take full notice of me, I had to do something to arouse his suspicion._ The disproportionate attention he gave to the things he feared was proof enough of his madness to her. She had always rejected the idea of being in the company of a madman, but sometimes that thought was stronger than she would have liked. He still behaved like a sane person, but what went on inside him had nothing human left.

Moreover, he was letting himself go. It doesn't show on a vampire the same way as it does on a common mortal, but the signs of irregular feeding were showing. He was probably sleeping very little, and for the first time his cheeks weren't perfectly shaven. In spite of his efforts to hide it, his deliriums were dragging him away from the world. _He's an obsessed, fanatic madman and he is becoming impossible to be around,_ Serana thought, but there was also something else. _However, the deeper he sinks into his waking nightmare, the more he suffers._ He was going down a spiral, and he refused anyone's help in getting out of it. Both Azrael and her mother treated him as if he had reached the point of no return, and perhaps they were right.

The problem with her father's condition was that, without his control, the court would descend into utter chaos. The power struggles were kept in check only because of the absolute and arbitrary power her father held, and the delicate balance between the parties would be turned upside down if one piece of that mosaic would become missing. However, either the court was more blind than she wanted to believe or they were very proficient at hiding their perceptions of this instability. None of them seemed overly concerned with the Lord's conditions, and they treated everything as if it was normal. They kept vying for his favor, and they didn't question the decreasing reactiveness of her father.

The only one who had noticed something and was showing something for it was, incredibly, Garan Marethi. 'Lady Serana,' he had once asked her, 'have you too been noticing something strange going on with the Lord, your father?' It was true that he was a devout follower of Lord Harkon and he made no secret of it, so he was relatively free to express his disconcert without compromising his position, but it had seemed strange to her nonetheless.

A great deal of things had changed once Azrael had come back, a few hours before.

The Dunmer had come back two days before the end of the fortnight which had been set as the time for him to recover the Scrolls. His presence always caused some degree of confusion and preoccupation among the court members, but this once that reaction had been far too evident. He had walked in with one Scroll tied to his back near his longsword and the other to the back of his belt. He had swiftly greeted the one of two people he had talked to during his brief periods of stay and then had gone directly to Lord Harkon.

Many of the people who had seen him enter had gone to Serana for explanation. For once, they could not fathom how he mad managed to find both Scroll in that ludicrously short amount of time. Secondly, they were deeply concerned about their personal status now that someone else was solving all the problems the Lord presented the court, but they wouldn't admit it. They all fired suspicious glances at the door of the Lord's chamber, where Azrael had strode in. Serana gently dismissed everyone, saying that she had no idea herself how he had managed to do that. She was risking her reputation in doing that, but it was a lot better than the alternative.

Besides, she had her own questions. _Why has he not greeted me too, for one?_ She had seen him glancing at her, but he hadn't done anything that could resemble an acknowledgment. _He hasn't seen me for ten days, so at least that would have been needed._ If there was something she had yet to grasp about him, it was that unpredictable side of him. It seemed capricious at times and purposefully inconsistent at others. Of course, the wound had been inflicted on a deeper level than those interpretative thoughts. It had awakened once again all the suspicions she had. _For that matter_ , she said to herself, _he told me he would explain what happened with the Dragon back in the Soul Cairn, and he hasn't yet._

She tried to ignore everything as best as she could. His behavior always retained a layer of irregularity; it could only be fully understood if one had seen all the events leading up to the current one, which in this case she hadn't. _Still, it seems incredibly strange that someone so self-controlled has these swings_. None of those were new thoughts. Actually, they were very old ones. They were the first questions she had had about him, and that still had no answer. Nevertheless, she was resolute on seeing how the events would turn out.

It had been a few hours since he had come back, and the situation still wasn't any clearer. He and her father had been locked in the latter's chamber for a long time. On the bright side, she knew what subjects Azrael would bring up. The Scrolls were the obvious one, and then there was the blind Moth Priest. _My father won't be very happy, but he has been able to calm him before._ What she didn't know, and that was what unsettled her the most, was what Azrael meant to do once he had given her father those pieces of information. _He will have an advantage, but how will he use it?_

For the time being, he had used it to rally the whole court and give an official and ceremonial dinner. The court had been both exited and suspicious when it had been announced, and Serana didn't know what to make of it. Azrael had always done the smart thing and communicated with everyone one to one, if he needed. So, when her father had announced that he was summoning the court for supper on Azrael's behest, she had been very surprised. _A turn of events, it would seem. But what leverage will he have?_

 _What leverage does he have…?_ The question kept bouncing around her mind as she noticed her eyelids closing and opening quickly. She became aware of the reddish light of the main hall and of the buzz around her. She shook her head slightly, not wanting anyone to notice that she had been lost in thought. She felt her hand grasping the fork by her side and her gaze directly towards the tables. She fully returned to the present. She quickly managed to reconstruct the whole situation. _I hope I haven't missed anything._

It didn't seem so. Her father, beside her, was looking beyond her to the left. All of the court members' eyes gazes were directed in the same place, which was where Azrael was seated. He had stood up silently, and was now waiting for the buzz to diminish. Serana was confused by that, but her father hadn't said anything to prevent it and was instead looking with anticipation. She understood at once. _This was planned. This is something they discussed before in his chambers_. Her father knew he had to say something and was letting him. She wondered if Harkon knew what was about to be said or not.

Azrael was motionless, his hands folded behind his back, striking a posture that wasn't among the ones he usually had. 'Scions of the Night,' he said, and his deep voice echoed through the room. 'I ask you to hear me out. I have grave news to bring you. But first, I owe everyone here an apology.'

The court members stirred silently. Serana looked hard, but didn't notice anything decisive. The powerbrokers of the court were looking with interest, whereas the traditionalists were firing murderous glares in the Dunmer's way. Each individual had his own reaction, and that was indicative. There wasn't a pattern to adhere to, there was no precedent. She looked at Azrael, thinking that she was probably the most startled out of everyone in the court. However, there were several elements of how Azrael was talking that to her, and only to her, screamed deceit.

'I,' he continued, 'want to say that I regret what I did when I first came here. It's true, for anyone who still didn't believe it. I did have the intention to kill you.' His voice touched some deeper notes. 'I didn't have any understanding. The world of the sheep, of the ones who call themselves living, was all that I knew. I lacked perspective. However, you have given it to me. Now I see, and my eyes are open. I wanted to say that, somehow, someway, I have everyone here to thank for my shift in perspective.'

 _Liar,_ she thought, but for once she thought of the term as neutral. He wasn't lying to her nor to himself. She scanned the hall once again, unable to predict what reactions would be present. She looked at the faces, some tense and some relaxed but all with clear signs of one thing: confusion.

'As is done in many places in the mortal world,' Azrael said, 'I wish to atone for what I've done. I am ready to share something with you, a secret that I might have shared with your Lord alone but that he insisted I shared with everyone here.' He nodded respectfully towards Lord Harkon, who didn't react in any way. 'The knowledge I'm about to give you is very delicate, and I ask of you that, in the face of it, you keep calm.'

Serana didn't bother to look at the court members, because her own restlessness was taking possession of her eyes and keeping them fixed on Azrael. _What do you mean?_ All that prelude was thought of in advance, he never talked that diplomatically with anyone about anything.

'There is someone, here in this very chamber, who is contemplating the assassination of our Lord and the destruction of this castle.'

She still didn't look, but the noise reached her. Several voices, some of them almost raised and some only whispers. Azrael raised a hand in the air, responding readily to that reaction. He had foreseen it clearly, and despite warning them to keep calm he knew they wouldn't have been able to in the face of that.

'Keep calm. There is no blame yet, only hope. As I was saying, someone is considering the uproot of everything you hold dear in this place. My days outside this castle have given me ample time to think and reflect on this inevitable event. Of course,' he said, and Serana registered the slight change in his tone from a graver to a softer one, 'all this wouldn't have been doable without the keen eyes and ears of the Lord's dear daughter, princess Serana.'

She felt all the court members eyes shifting on her before she could even see it. She didn't understand and didn't try to. Her mind was frozen, all the energy she might have required to think was somewhere else. She felt her face tickling, but there was no blood in her arteries that might have caused her to blush. The frost gripped her deep down, and the chilling sensation crept upwards.

'She has done the greatest service to this cause, and helped me to understand what was really going on. Now,' he said slowly, pausing briefly to wait for all the pairs of eyes to come back to him. 'I have given you this knowledge, and you will understand that this has put both me and her in great danger. This is why I now ask Lord Harkon to give us permission to complete the last part of his plan, and bring the Scrolls to the spot the Moth Priest has told us.'

Lord Harkon nodded. 'You have your leave. You have served he faithfully, Azrael, and you deserve to live.'

The Dunmer turned one last time towards the hall, the rims of the hood waving on both sides. 'Everyone among you should keep their eyes peeled. Remember that before my return, someone will have betrayed our Lord.' He unfolded his hands from behind his back and hinted at sitting back in his chair again. 'That is all. I thank you for your attention.'

There was noise coming from the hall. Voices, and again they were both raised and quiet. Vingalmo's accent was hearable, and Fura Blood-Mouth's soprano trilled above the other noises. Serana's eyes were directed straight towards the two tables, but she wasn't really looking. The world shimmered in front of her, confused and neglected in favor of the storm that was raging in her mind. Her head had slowly shifted back towards the hall without her even noticing. A second before she was looking at Azrael, but she now found herself looking elsewhere. _I have waited for hours,_ she thought, _with the silent promise that everything would be clear. But now it's all even more confused…_

Her sight was barely focused enough to spot the darting glances that were thrown her way. One thing that had managed to stay afloat in spite of her efforts to concentrate was her social sense, because by then it required almost no conscious effort to reap its results. She felt those gazes touching her briefly, one after the other. They were the gazes she had seen thrown around the court since she was a child. Glares filled with distrust, but that had never been directed at her. She didn't remember one occasion when she had been the person those gazes were stolen towards. The coil of feelings bound to that perception cleared its way through her bewilderment, because it was all too clear.

 _You,_ she thought, looking at Azrael. He was sitting down in the seat next to her, his intertwined fingers resting rigidly in his lap. His head was bent down, and the rims of the cowl hid even the sides of the black void that covered his face. _You did this. You destroyed my reputation with a few, well-placed words._ Decades, and she had always been the one out of every intrigue, the one everyone would talk to if need be. Now she wasn't anymore. He claimed that she had found a traitor in their ranks. That, to everyone there, meant that she was no longer the person to talk to about matters that were in any way delicate. _And you knew this was going to happen._ It was never about the person or their sensibility. _It's the greater good._ Something inside her mind went off track, asking the question that was probably the right one. _Why did he endanger my position here? It was reckless._

Still, everything those suspicious eyes told her was secondary. There was something more. She had never informed him of any traitor, and she wasn't aware of any. In addition, there was his tone, his posture, so premeditated and obviously deceitful. _But only to me._ He had attempted, and so far succeeded, in deceiving the court twice. _But the last time, he had me against. And I knew him well enough._ There was a sort of dull, lingering sense of pride in what had just happened and what it seemed to have meant. _He has me. That's what has given him the upper hand._ However, the resentment was rising as well. She had almost forgotten it.

She quickly became aware of a grasping sensation on her right shoulder. Her father was on her side. She wore a light red tunic, and in the absence of the pauldrons the touch was clearly felt through the fabric. _It's a light touch. It's gentle._ When she turned to the side, she found a warm smile on her father's thin lips as he looked at her. 'I am proud of you, my daughter,' he said. His face, in spite of the smile, still looked weary. 'Now I see. You were protecting me, and I misunderstood your good will for hostility.'

Smiling to her father even if she didn't feel like it was automatic, but she didn't remember a time when it had been so hard. 'I was just doing what had to be done, father,' she said. 'I figured that for the good of the family, I might as well have risked your favor for a while. If everything ends now, it was well worth the effort.'

She had spoken softly and she had monitored her words with the utmost care, but inside she was devoured by terror. _What if what I said doesn't match with what he knows? I just… Imagined what the obvious things to say would be if what Azrael had said was true…_ She kept her eyes briefly on her father, and noticed his features starting to shift. They relaxed into an ever warmer smile. She let go of the tension in her throat, of which she had been barely aware before. _It worked._ Her time with Azrael had yielded the right speed of the mind to understand what had happened, and her innocent charm had worked its magic once again.

Lord Harkon lied back tiredly into his high seat, bringing both hands to the pommels of the armrests. 'I am proud of you, my daughter.' There was something in his voice, something akin to a crushing melancholy.

That was dealt with. She turned around, towards the hall, bent her head downward towards the floor and closed her eyes shut. Her hands were shaking and felt the urge to nervously beat with her feet on the floor, but she retrained herself. _Quiet now. And concentrate._ There was something going on. Until it was all over, she was just a somewhat conscious part of the pandemonium Azrael had just created. _Until this is all over, I need to play a part. A part that is coherent and consistent. The rest doesn't matter._ Something immediately came to her. _Azrael said that I understood something was happening. But I could pretend I don't know who is going to be the perpetrator._ She opened her eyes wide, suppressing a smile of relief. That was her exit point for the time being.

Next thing, she needed to know what she would do. She cleared her head as much as she could, leaving just he background hum of all her emotions storming through her mind. _Something, something._ Azrael had a phrase he repeated at times. _Most people forget the goal and get lost in the planning._ The meaning was clear. More often than not, the things to do were incredibly simple. _Think. What is it that I want?_ It was surprising how long it took to remember that her main objective was to understand what had happened. _And the first thing to do?_ There was some degree of choice, but one option was the bottleneck she should have aimed for. _I need to talk to Azrael._

She put her hand down on the armrest and turned around, expecting to find him still sitting in his chair as he had seen him a moment before. However, as soon as she glimpsed at the side she saw that he was no longer there. _Where has he gone?_ Not a lot of time had passed, so he couldn't have gone too far. Her eyes searched frantically for his dark frame, and it didn't take her too long to spot him near the wall of the hall. He was looking at the doorway that led further on into the castle, towards her room, and seemed intentioned to go that way. _Slipping away from attention…_ Her mind was running quickly, so much so that sometimes she found it hard to keep up. And yet, she knew what she had to do.

She rose from her chair and cast a glance at the court members. Some had risen from their seats and were walking around the tables, finding partners to talk to and forming small groups. She felt a pair of eyes fixing on her, and she searched for the source of that sensation, finding it moments after when her gaze met the one of Garan Marethi.

She turned around, pretending that she hadn't noticed anything. She hadn't had the time to look clearly at the Mer's face, but the impression that had struck her spoke very clearly. He was anxious, and she didn't want someone who was nervous talking to her in that situation. _What might he want from me, anyway?_ He had been the only one to make a notice of the Lord's state in her stay, but nothing more. _Perhaps he just happened to look at me… But it didn't seem that way._ She resigned to avoid moving her eyes again. If everything went well, she would have slipped away after Azrael and worst case scenario she would have heard someone call her name.

She moved away Azrael's chair from the way. The feet of the seat grazed the floor and made a sound loud enough to made her deaf to everything else for a moment. She heard the end of a voice. 'Serana! Lady Serana!'

She would have heard her own name through a thousand sounds, but that went for everyone. She immediately recognized the accent and the tone of voice as the one of Garan Marethi. She relaxed her face muscles consciously and then turned around. Upon seeing the robed Mer approaching her, she flashed a smile. 'Yes, Garan?' she said. 'What can I do for you?' A voice was screaming in her mind. _He's a schemer, and this once I'm his target. I need to be careful._

'Lady Serana, a moment to talk, please,' he said, getting close enough so that he could talk without raising his tone. Serana saw that she was right in her perception before. His face was indeed marked by a degree of fear. 'What Azrael said, it unsettled me deeply. I couldn't believe my own ears, and now I have questions. Did you really found a conspirator inside these walls?'

 _I decided what to say before,_ she reminded herself, mentally rehearsing it. She hid the momentary thinking by faking a likewise momentary indecision. 'Listen, Garan,' she said softly. 'You've always been a loyal subject to my father, so I think I can let you in on a little secret, provided you can keep it to yourself.'

He shook his head and waved his hands impatiently. 'Anything you ask of me, my lady, just tell me the truth.'

'I really have no idea of who the traitor is. Azrael is the one behind the discovery. I had the time to privately report to him some unsettling things that I had heard while I was here. At a certain point, he seemed to stiffen and he told me that there was a traitor among us. He didn't reveal his name to me because he wasn't sure yet.' Her tension was increasing, and she could only hope that it wasn't showing. It had taken some effort to make that up on the spot. 'You can ask my father. Perhaps he knows,' she added, because Garan's suspicious expression hadn't changed.

The Mer's face was tense. 'My lady,' he said, 'you're telling me that our new member has told you of a conspiracy to dethrone our Lord, but didn't tell you who it was?'

A steel clutch gripped her chest. _Damn it,_ she thought, blinking repeatedly. _I made a mistake somewhere. But now I can hardly eat back what I've just said, can I?_ She thought for a moment. 'Yes, I suppose so,' she said, considering all the options. The best one, however, was to wait.

Garan scratched his forehead pensively. He seemed thoughtful, but only for a moment. He suddenly protruded his face forward, his arms shaking. 'What if he's playing one of those little wicked games of his?' he whispered. 'Have you thought about it, my lady? What if that was just a feint? What if it was meant to cover something?' He bit his lip and glanced at the floor, but only for a moment. 'What if,' he said, struggling to keep his voice down, 'he's the conspirator himself, and was just trying to draw attention away?'

 _I'm in a corner. I need to play it well._ She feigned a moment of reflection once more, and shrugged. 'I don't think so, Garan. I think we can trust him.'

'With all due respect,' rejoined the Elf, 'it's not about what anyone thinks, it's about if we can trust him or not. This is about the truth.' He seemed to be barely able to contain his emotions, which was a lot to be said about the otherwise icy Garan Marethi. 'That Dunmer tried to kill us all. He's alive by a miracle. You're the one who should trust him less than everyone else.'

She didn't hear the end of the sentence very clearly. Unbeknownst to him, he had made a mistake himself and had shaken a rule that she could now forcefully reestablish. _You slipped up, this once,_ she thought, putting her hands on her hips and frowning. 'Yes, indeed. I trust him less than everyone, and yet I'm giving him my faith. You should too. Do you dare question my father's judgment? Or mine, for that matter?'

A shade of grim understanding flowed on the Mer's face. _He knows he has lost this battle and that he won't gain anything more from me._ That was a small victory, but it was brief and gave her only a meager advantage. _On the other hand, he knows I have something to hide now._ But then again, everyone did now. She, the little girl who strolled around the court, had become a spy for her father and an ally to the newcomer. Her position was compromised to a point where that small risk wouldn't have damaged her greatly. _There needs to be a change, because we won't be able to stand the friction. But first… I need to know what's really going on._

She turned towards Garan, knowing that he would now accept her leave. 'I apologize, Garan, but I have to join Azrael. I'll be happy to continue this conversation sometime in the future.' With that, she could guarantee the less amount of suspects as she could.

She didn't wait for a reply and turned around, finally free to let the worry she felt emerge on her face without anyone noticing. She raised her eyes. Azrael had disappeared in the corridor leading to her room. _It's clear he wants me to talk to him._ The sting of resentment rose again in her throat. _Maybe he can explain how this mess came about._

She walked towards the doorway leading to her room. She heard the buzz coming from behind her still, and underneath it the sound of her own footsteps. Something occurred to her. _Of course, Azrael managed to slip away because I didn't hear his footsteps._ She had only once had a good look at his greaves, and the sole of the boots was made of a very resistant material that, however, was so soft that it hardly made a sound. The only noise she remembered him making as he walked was the cloak waving behind him.

 _Now, now…_ she said to herself, coming back from that useless thought. She needed to look at as many possibilities as she could before confronting him. _There's so much to unravel though…_ His whole speech had been a riddle, but there seemed to be a main point. There was a traitor among the court members. _But what does that mean? Is there another one that is planning something beside the two of us?_ That was the strangest part. Why would he ever expose the presence of a traitor among the court when the two of them were planning something that, if found out, could lead to the two of them being lynched? Why plant the seed of doubt? Who was that traitor, even?

There was also another thing. _Why did he involve me?_ There were reasons she could think of, but there was one clear contract that made her think that the mention of her help had been something meant to manipulate the listeners more than anything else: the fact that he hadn't consulted her at all. _And here he is again, weaving his web._ You could even guess the brightness of his intellect from those sporadic deceptions. The amount of information he could muster, remember and then exploit in a single maneuver was immense.

As she turned around the corner, she made out his figure standing against the wall in a place where the corridor became larger. She looked at him, but nothing significant had changed in his appearance. He was holding one of the two Elder Scrolls in one hand, with the other tip of the roll lying on the ground.

She had to fight for a moment with her own mix of feelings. The subtle pull she felt when looking at him was clouding her mind and muffling her resentment. Both of those, however, would remerge stronger than before. _But I can feel the anger. I really can._ 'Very well, mastermind,' we said, stopping a few feet away from him and letting her irritation emerge through the bitter sarcasm. 'Now explain what you did.'

'Seriously?' There was a faint surprise in his cold voice. 'I thought it was obvious.'

Her throat almost closed and her face tickled. It couldn't flush, but the analogy was strong. Her hands too seemed to tickle, and the sense of touch crept to her teeth. 'What? Obvious?' Her voice was even angrier than how she felt. 'I'll not even touch of the more sentimental side of it, because you probably won't understand. But understand this: you just destroyed the reputation I have built for myself in over sixty years. Sixty! And why in Oblivion would you warn them about a traitor in their midst when we're…' Her voice trailed off. She lowered it significantly, with a great effort. 'When we're the ones who are acting behind their back.'

'I know,' he said. 'It was a necessary arrangement. We had no more time, and I had to buy us some more.' He looked absent for a moment, as if deep in thinking. 'I think you're missing the fact that your father is the pawn of most interest to me. The court won't do anything until he orders to, and I used the moment of weakness he had to trick him. Now we have more time.'

The fact, or the probability, that he had already calculated and assessed all the things that she thought he had neglected was irritating her even more. 'I know, but he's unstable. And the court suspects us. Garan Marethi just stopped me in my tracks, believing that you're the conspirator yourself. And by the way, who in the Mace of Soul's name is this traitor? I haven't told you anything…'

She stopped, because Azrael had either murmured something of had scoffed mockingly. She hadn't heard it clearly. 'Yes,' he said slowly and coldly, 'of course I'm the conspirator.'

Her whole body seemed to freeze on the spot for a second, but a second long enough that she almost felt like she was losing her balance. She couldn't think. She couldn't think of anything. 'You mean…' she stammered. 'You means there isn't any actual…'

'Obviously not.' There was a strange tone in his voice. She even thought that he seemed quite amused, in an idiosyncratic and queer sort of way. 'If you're asking me, then yes, I admit I had my share of fun.'

She had renounced her clarity, and now it felt like it was a mixture of confusion and resentment speaking in her place. She was seeing through her eyes, but she didn't feel like she had much control of what she was saying. 'So you did that, you sacrificed my reputation and risked our safety to entertain yourself.'

'And buy more time,' he promptly answered. There was a faint trace of curiosity in his voice.

'Do you have any idea of the position we're in right now? We will never be able to come back safely to this castle! They will realize that something's amiss, and soon enough their suspicions will fall back on us. You could have just as well doomed us.'

The air around her seemed to cool down all of a sudden. She moved her eyes around. 'Serana.' She immediately brought her gaze back to Azrael's hidden face, felling her arms shaking. 'Get a hold of yourself and think.' The Dunmer's voice was hard and it was vibrating. 'Am I even talking with the Serana I know? Or with her fearful, deplorable little twin?'

 _No…_ she thought, and she thought it clearly. _No, you're talking to me._ That change in the air around her was clearly a result of her imagination, but it had snapped her wide awake. The raging core of indignation was still burning, but it wasn't talking through her mouth any longer. She felt her chest tight, and she imagined that if she had been breathing her breaths would have been incredibly short.

'It's me…' she whispered. 'I'm sorry.' She raised her head, looking him straight in his invisible eyes. 'But really, Azrael, I don't understand. Be clear with me, please. It's all I ask.'

He seemed to unexplainably hesitate for a moment before speaking. He remained silent in a way that she was unfamiliar with. 'Fine,' he said, and despite the queer pause the tone didn't shift; however, she still had the impression that he had left something unsaid. 'If everything goes according to my plans, which I'm confident it will, we will have to return just once to this castle, and we won't need anyone's approval in that specific occasion. I'll not go into any details now, because we don't have the time. Given that circumstance, I thought to play all the cards we had left, but all the time we could and throw the court in as much disarray as we could. Is it clear thus far?'

'Yes.'

'Good. With that time, we decipher the two Scrolls that are left. The Moth Priest knew a way, and he let me know. I have told your father that I will return with the Scrolls deciphered and that I will have the solution to the riddle that fuels his ambition. What happens after we decipher the Scrolls, I can only guess, but it won't alter my plans by a much.' He shook the hand holding the tip of the Scroll that he kept on the floor. 'Now, you take this and we set off. Grab your things and we will be gone from here.'

 _It's so much to digest…_ What he had done was now a bit clearer, but most of her ideas had turned into mental vapor. She hadn't imagined that his actions were on that scale, and that resulted in her not having seen the bigger picture. _Yes again, he has managed to surprise me._ She suppressed the storming sea of her thoughts as much as she could, knowing that a lengthy cavalcade awaited them. She went towards him and reached for the Scroll with her hand.

She closed the grip on the roll and picked it up. However, as she stepped towards her room, something else arose. 'Azrael,' she said. 'Last time we talked to each other we let me in in the decision that regarded us both. Why didn't you give me a choice, this once?'

As the silence fell, she realized how close they were. Her hands were almost touching on the tip of the Scroll and her chest was so very close to his shoulder. And yet, after a fraction of a second, Azrael moved away. His hand slid off the Scroll's tip and he stepped backwards. His hands moved slowly upwards, reaching his collarbones and grabbing the rims of the hood. His fingers closed on the fabric and pushed it back on his ears, and then vanished in the locks of dark hair that fell out of the cowl.

She stared motionlessly at his visage. The pale skin shone weakly in the dim corridor and the lips, in between the thick mustaches and the black beard, were barely parted. His eyes flared with an igneous, baleful light, but there seemed to also be a warm glow in those vermillion irises, streaked with bright yellow.

'You did have a choice, Serana,' he said, and the cold melted in tone that seemed languid. 'You could have stood up and told the court I was the traitor. You could have made sure that this once I didn't survive. You could still do it, but you won't. Instead, you have chosen to make this your last supper in this castle.' His gaze moved away from hers, to his right. His irises flared. 'You have chosen. And for reasons that I cannot fathom, you have chosen me.'

He brought one hand behind his head and grabbed his long, black hair in his grasp. The other hand grabbed the rim of the hood and pulled it back on his forehead. The black, impenetrable void hid his face once again, concealing it from her eyes.

'Grab your things and join me outside, I…' His tone was coated once again with ice, but his voice had broken. 'I need to think,' he said, grimly.

As he walked away, Serana felt something gnawing her very flesh as if devouring her from the inside.


	24. Chapter XXIII: Heart of Darkness

Chapter XXIII: _Heart of Darkness_

* * *

The howl of the wind was silencing the muffled nighttime noises of the forest. There was also a distant sound of music and human voices that came from very far away, carried by the wind. Serana felt on edge. In more ways and more meanings than one. On the one hand, there hadn't been a day in which she had felt tranquil after leaving the Keep. She had never experienced anything like that in her entire life, and she was surprised that she was experiencing it now. She was distraught, but it wasn't a general sense of anguish. It revolved around the Castle, and her sudden departure from it. There was a physical sensation of no longer having a protection to shield her. She felt herself becoming smaller and smaller, and it felt like she could implode at any moment.

She couldn't attribute this to anything in particular, but there was a hint. Azrael had provided it, and perhaps not on purpose. _Is there a thought, any at all, that eases the sensation?_ he had asked. There was indeed, and it was the thought of home. Of the red, dim light that came through the stained glass of the main hall of the Keep. Of the grim brightness that filled her room. Of the low voices of the court members, whispering among each other. Of so many things she could hardly keep count. She didn't remember that sense of crushing longing, not even when she had escaped with her mother. _That time I thought I would soon see the castle again._

There had been a moment when she had seen the black walls of the castle had disappeared in the darkness of the night. They were on the boat when it happened, and she was at the helm. She had looked back, only to see that the walls were no longer in sight. A thought had struck her, too loud not to be heard. _You'll never see this place again. Not like you left it._ It was a hunch, but Azrael's sureness made that feeling more tangible. She still had no idea what he meant, but it was as if something deep inside of her knew. When she had managed to retrace the feeling to that moment, she had come to the inevitable and confusing solution that she was homesick. What was tormenting her was nostalgia.

However, there was also another way in which she felt on edge, one that was so relevant to the present that it made her wistfulness into a backdrop. She had first realized the extent of her perception of the bond between her and Azrael in the Soul Cairn, and back then she had considered it an advantage. Now, however, she was reconsidering it, because she felt on edge. _On the razor's edge._ Her perception conjured an image in front of her eyes, the image of a crossroad. One small touch could have made her tumble down either side of the thin blade on which she was treading. _Or are we both walking on it?_

She sat on the ground, a dry reddish dirt. She kept her knees bent and her arms encircled them, her fingers intertwining. She felt fearful, and her first reaction was to swing back and forth slowly, as if she was in a crib. It was puerile, she knew that, but she couldn't help it. It calmed her, and that was what mattered. Her eyes gazed to the side, to the tree where Azrael was leaning on. He stood on his feet and still hadn't sat down, and had stayed like that ever since she had awakened. _Well, I'm one to talk,_ she thought, _I think I've been staring at him for as long as he has stood._

It was hard not to, however. _How easy is it to be like him? Seeing the world in concepts and symbols, playing around with them to see what happens._ That which she had thought of as a weakness until a few days before now seemed an immense advantage. Those cryptic words he had left her with before he had left her to grab her few things at the castle, the night of their departure, were ample proof that he wasn't blind to their connection. And that wasn't nothing. It was thin as the thread of a spider's web, and very few people other than the two of them had noticed. And yet, seen from the inside, there was much more than any old relationship she had ever heard of. There was fear and resentment as much as there was closeness and desire on her part, and of that she was sure. _And who knows what's going on inside that tenebrous head of his._

She really couldn't find a better way to think of it than being on edge. On the edge. But there seemed to be something at that crossroad that prevented them from going forward. At the very least, the road they had to travel in the real world was clear. They would have arrived there that very day at midnight, but Azrael didn't seem willing to start the night's ride yet. He was thoughtful, as he had been every hour of every day since they had left the keep. However, for the first time since she had known him, he seemed preoccupied about the content of his thoughts. When he was thinking, he usually progressed quickly, whereas this time it seemed he was obsessing on something he had having a hard time resolving. And there was one question that she kept asking herself. _What if he's trying to resolve the unresolvable? A feeling, for instance._

However, the pendulum kept swinging, and this time it was weighting heavy on the side of rebellion and resentment. _How long do we have to go on?_ It was a single-minded way of thinking, that didn't take into account that she was probably having a similar influence on him than that his had on her. But it was the nature of her ambivalence, the thing she had been tormented by forever. And resentment was taking over.

'Will it be long before we leave?' she asked. That was how resentment influenced her. It never took any form that others could recognize as open questioning, most of the times. Most times she felt it and tried to vent it, but this time it was different. Moments passed, and she didn't hear any answer coming and suspected none might come. 'I'm talking to you,' she said, raising her voice.

'I know,' Azrael said, without a single motion. He kept looking forward, through the trees and towards the horizon. The weak light of one of the moons shone from the side, brightening up his dark figure.

Serana understood from his tone that he wasn't going to add anything more. 'Then you might as well answer me.' She felt herself quaking at the end of that sentence. A strong shiver shook and seemed to lower the temperature in her entire body. Her veil of anger shattered.

'You sound impatient,' he said. 'What is it?'

She felt herself freezing solid, because he had caught her by surprise and she didn't know what to answer. She hadn't paid too much attention to his words as well. She had heard them but had not really listened to them. And besides, she pendulum had swung past the focal point and now she felt afraid. _This once I was lucky, but I might have pushed too far in saying that._ Still, something of her anger was lingering, and that could have given her the courage to go on.

'Nothing,' she said, 'I was just… confused.' She considered it wise to specify and go through with what she had said before. 'I don't understand why we're not departing, you said yourself that we haven't got much time.'

'We gained a few hours taking a shortcut. We don't have to move at once.'

'And what do you need the time for? You're the one who often figuring out ways to occupy precious time, and yet here you are not occupying it. You've been standing there was at least an hour.'

He didn't answer. Now immediately anyway. His gaze was still fixed on the horizon, but a quivering motion ran across his neck and head. 'As I said in the Keep, I need to think.'

Something happened, at first deep inside her and then on a more surface level. A great number of things seemed to be moving all together, and the purpose was apparent. They were all converging. There was a thread that seemed to guide all others. _You mentioned the Keep,_ he said to him in her own head. _You mentioned it yourself. You drew a parallel._ For the first time ever, she saw something weak in him. _You're almost begging me to understand that whatever you're thinking about is the same thing you were thinking of back in the Keep._ And anyone could have guessed what he was thinking about in the Keep.

All of her questions, all of her feelings seemed to rally around that one thing. That small sign, which was nonetheless something to take into account. And with the help of every feeling and every thought, she finally sensed something coming from a deeper place in her heart. It was something ravenous, the thing that was eating and consuming her when Azrael had left her alone, back in the Keep before their departure. It was something dark, monstrous, a small yet perilous feeling. It had the strength to strain her and pull her from all sides until she dissolved into dust.

When she spoke, she didn't have full control of her words and despair melded with anguish in her mind. 'Azrael, we can't keep on like this. I can't. I feel like I'm going to burn alive if we do. You're trying to think your way out of something that you won't ever be able to understand with logic—'

'Serana,' he said, raising his voice just enough to overwhelm the sound of hers. 'That's enough.'

'No,' she said, feeling her throat clenching and her voice on the point of breaking. 'No, you've had your time but now—'

'Please.'

'No,' she said. Her hands moved away from one another and she put them on the ground. 'No.' She changed the angle of her feet and put the against the terrain, too, pushing with both. She gave a push with all four of her limbs and rose to her feet. 'I can't believe I'm saying this, and I'll only be able to say this once. You might be able to withstand the tension, but I can't. And no matter what you think or do, just know that this does involve me. It doesn't have anything to do with my family or out mission, but it does involve both of us as if it did. We're both ravaged, and you do see that. You even admit that it's the case, but you refuse to do anything about it. You were even trying to stop me from doing it. I—'

'I said that's enough.' She heard the thundering note in his voice, and she saw the shiver that shook him; she didn't listen to the former and didn't pay attention to the latter. She only understood that he had, in turn, predicted clearly what she was about to say and had stopped her in her tracks. Even then, it seemed he only had his intellect to cling on to.

'Fine,' she said, 'if you won't hear it this way than I'll tell it in a way that you'll understand. There is a problem, that's clear, and you're blatantly going about solving it the wrong way. We should be facing this together, each of us providing our experience to it. Instead, you're trying to solve the problem by suppressing the symptoms. You're forcing yourself to repress everything, and you're silently influencing me as well. You haven't even created the conditions for the issue to be solved properly.' She didn't know why, but she stepped forward; they were now rather close, no further than arm's reach. 'If I just try to get an understanding of you, you slip away, you become elusive and devious, you hide from me—'

There was something that happened. Definitely. And yet she wasn't able to understand what. A shadow had materialized in the air, but then everything had ceased to be for a moment. She could not decide if she had stopped talking before she had stopped hearing or vice versa, because both had happened but the sequence was impossible to guess. Likewise, she couldn't know if there was nothing in front of her eyes before they were closed or for some other reason that she didn't have the clarity to imagine in the moment. It was strange because she didn't feel anything under her feet. It was as if she was dreaming, floating all of a sudden in an expanse where putting one's feet on the ground wasn't necessary.

And then she became aware of her body. All of it, and in the same moment. She didn't feel anything at first beside remembering that she had a body and that probably wasn't dreaming, but that didn't last for more than a few moments. Without her realizing it, her vampiric instinct had awakened strongly. The waves of heat that pervaded her made her aware of the solid surface beneath her, but not in the places where she had expected it to. There wasn't anything under her feet, and the she felt sensory signs from other places. One particularly strong one came from the spot she quickly identified as her own cheek. It was a lot stronger than the others, as if stinging.

 _What happened?_ It was a frantic thought, but it was the first sign of her mind resuming its normal function after that imprecise yet sudden disruption. She tried to find a link, something that could reconnect everything to what was happening before. _But there isn't really a before, now, is there?_ She could remember things, feelings, some bodily sensations, but she could not go back to where she was. That made it harder to understand where she was now. She almost didn't remember her thoughts, and could recall something as if it didn't really belong to her.

She had to wait until the senses came back, and it wasn't too long a wait. With her fighting instincts active, they permeated her quickly. As the touch came back, something happened to the dull yet stinging sensation to the cheek. She found that it wasn't a generic sensation after all but a stabbing, sharp pain. As if guided by the fact that the pain was near the eyes, the eyelids opened immediately and focused intensely. They pierced the darkness and quickly found what they were looking for. The color red. A tint that belonged to a fluid that lay on the dirt, and that was vaguely transparent. The thoughts had to wait, because the sense of hearing had come back, and it was catching a meld of different sounds, all frightening in their own way.

 _I'm almost prone_. That was rather clear from what she knew. Her head was down on the ground, resting on the cheek that didn't ache. Her eyes had also seen the terrain obliquely. _I need to turn around._ She felt her left arm trace an energetic swing in the air, giving her enough momentum to turn around. Before her eyes could confirm it, she knew and could feel that she was sitting down, both her arms behind her shoulders and her legs slightly spread and ahead of her waistline. The cheek ached still, but the noises grabbed her attention because they were now louder. She could make out two distinct ones. A lower one, of a living thing, and an inanimate one. A vampire's mind can easily distinguish.

Her eyes focused, and the scene in front of her became quite clear. A freezing fear paralyzed her where she was, still on the ground. Azrael was in front of her, but he wasn't the same as always. He wasn't motionless at all. The inanimate sounds she had heard was the sound of him ripping the tree he was leaning on out of the ground and uprooting it completely. The trunk was on the terrain, its branches stuck in the ones of other trees beside it, and the Dunmer was pummeling the fallen plant. The lower, living sounds were the growls that came from him. It sounded like he was roaring. She caught one of his armored fists, the right one, descending down on the wood. Before it sank in the trunk, her eyes caught something familiar. The red fluid. _My blood._ The blood coming from the wound on her left cheek was on his right gauntlet.

Now she understood. She even remembered. _The shadow, it was his fist. It was moving towards me, now that I think about it._ His right gauntlet would hit her left cheek. _It was strong, because I must have lost my footing and tumbled backward._ Logically, she would have spun around under the strength of the hit. And she had landed on the right side of her face, predictably. _So, he hit me._ It was the only possible solution.

'Azrael…'

Both sounds ended, and a new, whispering one came. He had turned around, and the cloak had followed his movement. Her eyes didn't linger on the cloak for much longer, because there was something else that caught their attention. His eyes. Two flaring, igneous orbs that shone under his hood like dying suns. And in contrast to their searing heat, she felt so cold that she couldn't move. She had always found him hostile because he was frosty, but now that she saw him scorching something changed. He was baleful.

' _Strun_ …' he roared, shaking his head violently. His voice seemed to stir the very air. 'By the Three, do I really seem like someone who says things on a whim? But no, you had to, because you want to know everything about me…' he screamed, a sarcastic note streaking his wrathful one. 'And try to find out what you already know. Did you not know that this could happen? Don't you understand that no matter what you do, no matter what you say, I am, and will always be, a monster? Don't you realize what darkness lies inside my mind?' A vibrating snarl escaped his throat. 'I am a blood-sucking fiend. A fiend who is betraying an unfortunate, fanatical madman because I'm bloody enamored with his daughter. And that's not the end. Laegiine, do you remember her? She's a trained killer and I'm her master. I am the mind that is spinning the web that controls half of his land. And that's not all. Do you remember Durnehviir? He's a _Dovah,_ and I'm his youngest brother and king. Yes, king…' he breathed.

He was anticipating and systematically answering to every question that popped in her mind.

'You've heard of the Dragonborn,' he continued. 'It's me. _Dovahkiin_. Or _Dovrahkren_ , for some. The Godsplitter. I said, back in Dimhollow Crypt, that you would hear of Alduin again. Well, because I killed him. I killed a god, my eldest brother, and took his place. His mantle. And with it, all the unending darkness that he carried inside. When _Volun_ , the darkness, melded with the one that I already carried in my mind, a monster was born.' His eyes flashed frighteningly, but they moved away, farther from her. 'I dare say you have seen it,' he murmured, and his fingers waved rigidly.

The howl of the wind swept away the sound of his last words, which were still vibrating even as they faded. The leaves were waving languidly, and their movement shook the branches from which they grew. There were only a few twigs that didn't move, and those were the ones belonging to the fallen tree. _The uprooted tree._ They were perfectly still, and if not because they were stuck in a myriad of other branches, because they were so close to the ground that the wind didn't reach them.

Azrael followed her gaze to the fallen tree, or so it seemed. He first looked at her and then his invisible face turned towards the trunk. He was standing by it. He was motionless, but his shoulders seemed relaxed, whereas before they were a bit higher than normal. His eyes moved away from the plant and moved to his gauntlet. His right gauntlet. He raised the forearm and straightened the wrist, staring at the back of his hand. _He's watching the fingers._ The small barbs on the fingers, that was where the blood had stuck. She didn't see it but could guess it. He never seemed to understand how he felt until he had thought about it, and that moment of interlude might have been precisely a moment to think.

His eyes moved again, and this once the movement was almost darting. They rose slightly above their own height, towards her left. She turned around nonetheless, but she guessed in advance what he was looking at for the second time in a row. _Shadowmere._ Her eyes fell on the mare, too. She had remained in her corner of the small clearing in the trees, and she didn't seem to have been interested in what had just happened. The beast's eyes were looking toward Azrael, with their steadfast loyalty and fiendish cunning in the gaze they generated. Serana glimpsed at the Dunmer as he entered her field of vision, walking closer to the steed.

'There's a wandering group of bards and thespians who has stopped not far from here.' He caressed the mare's side with his hand, the left one. He was checking the hitches that kept the Elder Scroll bound to the steed's side. 'Many have come from the nearby village, and some passers by have set up camp not far from their cart. A substantial number of revelers are now there.' He brought his left hand over the bulky back of the mare, and his right one moved near it soon after. 'Join me there when you're ready.' His fingers closed around the steed's spine, but they reopened soon after. The armored, talon-like fingertips slowly grazed Shadowmere's side as they came down. 'Actually, you ride there. I'll walk.'

His hands dropped to his sides, almost as if they were heavier than usual. He stepped forward, and there was a large shrub behind which he would have disappeared very quickly. He made another step. With the next one, he would have vanished. However, as he made it, he turned his made around ever so slightly. His eyes never managed to align with hers, but something seemed to spark from them. They said something to her. However, before she could understand anything more, Azrael's dark frame had disappeared behind the bush.

The spark that had come from his eyes seemed to reach her only now, too late. She felt a strange sensation at first, nothing more than an intuition, but that intuition immediately turned into something stronger. She felt like she had grasped something, something important, and that it could be understood. She had comprehended it, but could not yet explain it. That further layer came moments after when, seemingly on its own, the intuition unrolled as if it was a scroll. _I have the strength to walk away, but not the one to come close,_ was written on it. In that instant, her eyes seemed to open anew, on a completely new sight, even though they had never been closed in the last minutes. Vampires never blink.

 _I can… think,_ she realized. It wasn't so immediate. She could think now, but she could draw a line on the exact moment when she had become unable to do so. Her own voice was her line. When she had turned around to find him striking the fallen tree, she had said his name. And after that, she couldn't think. It was as if another person had lived those moments for her. She couldn't recall anything that had happened to herself in that timespan. She remembered what happened around her but not what happened to her. _It was probably far from relevant_. Moreover, she could recall one other such moment when she had found herself somehow present as a mere witness to what happened. _The Ritual._ She tried to cast away the thought. She had no wish to link the two memories together. One was terrible and gruesome. What she had just witnessed was different. Frightening, of course, but something more. _It was…_ She searched for the word. _Enticing._ Again, Elisif's word of choice rang in her head.

She rose to her feet. She was alone, and not just in fact. She felt alone. So alone that if someone had asked for how long she had been on her own, she could have said that it had been days. All that had happened in the short timespan before seemed a nightmare. A hallucination. It had happened so quickly. _I was sitting right there…_ she thought, remembering the moment when her frustration had made her speak. She could see a shallow dip in the ground where she had sat. She moved a step forward, not really going anywhere but merely making a note of the fact that she could decide what to do and when to do it.

She heard a snort coming from behind her. _And there's you, of course,_ she thought, reminded that Shadowmere was there with her. The mare didn't make her uncomfortable, but she didn't feel anything particular towards her. Unlike Azrael, it seemed. He shared a deeper bond with that animal than with any living being she had seen him interact with. She didn't think about it, because now that she had moved the first step she felt drawn to the fallen tree. Or what remained of it, now that she could see it more clearly.

She looked at the trunk more carefully. If not for the fact that the dips in the wood had overlapped, she could have almost counted precisely the number of times Azrael had hit the tree. Each strike had crushed the wood and had made it sink at least a few inches. _He's strong,_ she thought, _more than a lot of vampires I've known._ He had not attempted to break the trunk, he had merely punched it, but the damage had been great. The wood was full of small cuts and lines, signs of the barbs on the gauntlets. _He hit me with the same fists that he hit this tree with._ The whole trunk was much more resistant than her face was. _This means that he has attempted to slow down, to not hit me._ If he had hit her with the same strength he had used for that tree, her lower jaw would have been several feet away from the rest of her face.

 _Was that why I felt drawn to the tree?_ Had some of his inquisitive and observant attitude gotten into her? Before she had seen the tree, she had assumed that he had hit her with all of his strength. However, she saw now how inaccurate and blind that idea was. _But it was the only one I had._ It was one explanation of the few things she wished to acknowledge. _But the truth is important. Not what I want to believe._ And now, the truth might have just been in her grasp. Azrael had thrown a punch at her, but he had changed his mind. Perhaps he had regained a semblance of control before the hit landed. _But he did control himself. He blew off steam on this tree,_ she thought, this time glancing at the torn roots encrusted with dirt. _If he hadn't controlled himself, I would be dead. He would have done to me what he has done to this tree instead._

But that was what he did with those who crossed the threshold, wasn't it? He killed them. No matter their intentions, his reaction was to kill them. _For one time, he has shown a lack of originality,_ she thought, but it wasn't funny to her mind. Not one bit. She couldn't describe exactly the state of mind in which she was in, but it certainly wasn't one for jokes. She had done something serious, something that potentially no one had done before. _I have crossed the threshold once, and I'm alive._ That maybe wasn't true for other people who had done that. It wasn't true for Elisif. She had never crossed the threshold. She had not taken the risk. She had accepted Azrael's offer, which was his protection against himself. _He could have killed me, and he didn't._ There was something, something hidden in that concept. _He restrained himself._

There was nothing else left for her to do there. She brought her gaze away from the uprooted tree and turned around, towards Shadowmere. There were weak images flashing before her eyes, especially when she recalled those dips in the wood. She remembered Forbear's Holdout, the man torn clear in two. The one with the crushed skull. The source of the violence had been different, but the effects where similar. She came close to the mare, but the same thought floated past her consciousness. _I could, and perhaps I should, have ended the same way as those Dawnguard fighters did._ Culled down. She thought that one last time before she could distract herself by looking in the steed's eyes.

Shadowmere's gaze was unnatural. The minuscule size of the pupils could have been part of the reason. Serana searched for a sign in those wicked pits, looking for anything that could have helped her. _He trusts you. Why?_ And yet the answer was easy enough. Acceptance. Azrael knew that his mare, despite the fact that she was smarter than any other animal, still accepted him. _I will love all which you love, and shun all which you shun._ So recited the lords who came to swear fealty to her father. That seemed to be true enough for the steed as well.

However, Serana didn't see anything in Shadowmere's eyes. She only saw something reflected back to her, as if those ruby red, burning hollows were nothing more than looking glasses. She didn't guess it at first because it was something strange, almost alien to her. _Obsession._ That was what scarlet mirrors were reflecting. It was alien to her because she felt well, right there and then. There was no doubt, no fear. _I quite like being obsessed._ She knew that there had been something hypnotic about the scene she had witnessed. There was no magic in it. _Just a girl's…_ She halted the thought, reconsidering. _Just a woman's mind, playing tricks on her._

She did what Azrael had done, but this time she intended on finishing it. She walked to the huge mare's side, looked upward and threw her arms over her back. Her hands grabbed her spine, and she pulled herself up, putting her feet on the beast's abdomen as soon as she was comfortable. Shifting her hands on the horse's neck, she collected her left leg and lowered it on the mare's opposite side. 'Come on, lass,' she said, grabbing her mane and saying the same words that Azrael often said to her. 'Find him for me, will you?'

Shadowmere snorted and turned around. She looked to various sides, searching for a way out of the small glade, and when she found it she nimbly trotted towards it. Serana sensed the familiar bumping underneath her and felt her whole body relax. The mare walked through the trees and then turned left, in the direction where Azrael had gone.

Meanwhile, Serana sank back into her thoughts. They were mostly stirred by her inner turmoil, and many of them were substitutes for sensation she was unable to feel. Many of them were translations of what she sensed. Others were attempts to reconstruct the scene, give many of those senseless things a meaning of their own. Something simple, something that she could cling on to for certainty. And yet, she also felt a stronger pull towards the truth than normal. _The truth at any cost,_ that was the phrase that sometimes floated through her mind. However, as it was often the case, the only holder of the whole truth was Azrael himself. She had to find him first, and get him to talk second. Even without knowing where he had gone, the latter step would have been harder nonetheless.

Among the things she was uncertain of, there was also the precise emotions the Dunmer had been driven by. _Ire? Fear? Confusion?_ The reaction had been typical of someone in anger, but anger often arises from completely different things. Her father turned angry when he was sad. Her mother when she was anxious. And there was also the word he had uttered, or rather screamed, before he had started talking. _Strun,_ doubtlessly a word in the Dragon Tongue. _There are words in the Dovahzul that are more precise than any word in any mortal tongue,_ he had once said. That left more questions. Was the thing he had felt incomprehensible by mortal standards? _Or, perhaps, the Dragons manage to conceptualize even the things that cannot be abstracted in our language._ Although… _Dragonborn. Godsplitter._

Regardless of the facts, there were still things that she had felt and that she couldn't deny to be her own truth. The sense of burning heat, the fury, but also the space that his anger had created had felt immensely eerie to her. _Even now, after some times has passed, all my problems pale in comparison._ He had communicated so much beyond the meaning of his own words that it required a conscious effort to put it all into place. There was craving, there was fear, there was an unwilling attempt to control oneself. There were things that she struggled to understand, and that were probably beyond her ability to understand. She felt sure of everything that had happened inside of her, but as soon as she ventured outside, everything seemed to be hazy once more.

 _Is he even still sane?_ And what was the limit, the thin line between sanity and insanity? Perhaps he truly was a madman, and he knew it and lived in peace with it. Perhaps the hint of scorn that emerged when others challenged him was part of that consciousness. As in saying, 'Yes, I'm insane, and you're the next in line'. There were two sides of him: the blazing inferno within, and the cold winter outside. It was impossible to know when one ended and where the other began. And even then, they were such polar opposites that neither one was completely balanced. An inhuman desire on one hand and an unnatural need for distance on the other. But what was left in between? Was there anything in between?

There was one option which was worth considering, and it came from Elisif's words once again. _The darkness,_ she had said. The enticing darkness. Serana listened to the flashes that flowed past her eyes, overlapping with her vision of the real world for brief but intense moments. A dark shadow appeared first. _A fanatical madman…_ Azrael's voice, without doubt. _Because I'm bloody enamored with his daughter._ The shadow flickered and reappeared. _Volun…_ it breathed. _The darkness._ And in saying that, it seemed to shimmer once more and Elisif's melancholic smile intertwined with it. _The darkness…_

A feminine voice rang in the air. _And this one's not coming from my head,_ she rapidly understood. The shrill, playful cry that had just reached her didn't conform to her mood in any way. Besides, she didn't remember anyone having that exact same pitch. _I must be getting close to the revelers, then._ She stretched her ears, and there was the sound of numerous voices in the air. _But this one was closer._ She cleared her head, letting go of all the thoughts that had filled it, even those which required effort. She had recognized her own determination, and she was willing to make some sacrifices to keep on. _First thing,_ she thought, _I have to abandon Shadowmere._

She tugged the mare's hair and instinctively snapped her tongue to make a sound. It was something the horses in her father's stables answered to when she was little. While gripping the huge back of the beast and throwing her leg near the other to jump down, she realized that Shadowmere was the first horse she had used for a long, long time. _Other animals are frightened by vampires. Lucky for them. Men and Mer don't seem to have the same gift._ She lowered herself and her feet touched the ground. 'Stay here, lass, all right?' she said to the mare. She had no way to know if the steed intuitively understood the language, the tone or merely the will of the rider, but she had never disobeyed orders given by Azrael and even by her.

 _Now,_ she said to herself, letting her right hand slide down the mare's side in one last caress. _The cry came from over there._ There were two trees with thick foliage overlooking thick shrubs, with large leaves and their flowers still closed in soft buds. Spring was in its full. _And speaking of spring, which is the season of love…_ The voice she had heard had something particular about it. There was something mischievous about it. _A group of artists coming over and a great gathering is thrown. I cannot imagine an occasion like that without at least two youngsters sneaking away to make love._ The best solution was to sneak past in turn. _I wouldn't like to disturb them. Besides…_ She counted the days that had past since feeding. Even without the counting, she remembered the speed at which they had arisen before Her vampiric powers were awake. Enough to risk draining the two younglings of their attraction towards one another. _Either a hunter or a pariah. That's the choice of the vampire._

She could imagine that those large bushes she saw signaled the edge of the forest, but not its border with the road. Those two wouldn't have kept in plain sight. She stretched her ears once again and pinpointed the place where most of the voices came from. _From the right._ She tiptoed in front of Shadowmere and past the tree on the right, steering clear of the shrub. She could still hear the whispering coming from inside. They sounded delighted. _What's wrong with me and Azrael?_ she thought, casting a glance at the plants. _Why can those two enjoy their passion and we can't?_ She knew the answer, but she still had a gut feeling of injustice. She shook her head and kept walking, until the shrubs disappeared behind another tree.

She treaded carefully, laying her hands on the trees she walked by. There was the sound of instruments now coming from beyond the rim of the woods. _A lute. Two flutes… A drum, too._ The noise made by the voices had decreased. _They're playing, so the crowd has quieted down._ The giggles of the couple behind her were slowly becoming quieter, and she now barely heard them. In front of her, she could see the end of the tress. There were warm lights moving around, but still strong enough to create a contrast. She didn't see very well because of that.

She became aware of her nervousness as she walked by the last trees. She was nearing mortals for the first time after a while. _People,_ she thought, _not mortals, but people._ They were never called by that name inside the Castle. But it didn't matter how she called them, she still felt tense. _It could be pleasant, but I must not botch this._ The encounters with the inhabitants of Skyrim that had occurred after her awakening were all less than satisfactory. There would be times when Azrael walked inside a place to talk to someone, but she hardly ever opened her mouth at those times. She had no idea of what she was walking into, but there would be the need to explain her presence at the very least. _Why Azrael chose to mingle among people is a mystery. Of course, presuming he will be there himself._ Once again, she realized the immense amount of trust she unwittingly gave him.

She emerged from the trees, and the first thing she felt were both her eyes sparking and then cooling down. While they adapted to the amount of light, she could already spot something. The light sources were mostly torches and braziers, but there was a proportionally enormous one on the side. Far away from the edge of the woods, there was an enormous bonfire, with blazes that swung twice a man's height up into the air. The crowd, of the vast majority of it, wasn't around the fire but rather on its side, some standing and walking around and some sitting on the ground.

 _Where exactly are we?_ She had found herself on a short grass. There were several cut trees around, which made it quite clear that it was the place where the locals gathered the firewood they needed. The people, however, were sitting on the road and the bonfire was just at the edge of it. There was a reason for them being there, and she had considered it even before seeing it. Azrael had mentioned the group of bards, and their cart was parked on the side of the road, not very far from a high wooded wall that was probably the fortification of a small town. _Well, only a town would have this much people in it._ There were at least a hundred gathered around that cart. _Quite bold on their part with vampires on the prowl,_ she thought, but there had to be something else.

Two guards were standing on the side of the group opposite to the wooden wall. _Watches, then._ However, there were much more of them who were sitting down. They were all very calm, even the two standing were talking amiably with their hands folded behind their backs. _No better way to know than asking them, I suppose._ She would have had to go their way to reach the others nonetheless. She cast two lingering glances at the bards' cart before moving forward. _Not just poets,_ she thought, looking at some of them who had masks on. _Mimes and actors, too._ She would have taken a better look once up close.

For now, she came out of the woods and made sure she was clearly in the line of sight of the two watches. Coming nearer the center of the street, she crossed her arms and hunched over slightly while proceeding towards them. They noticed her soon after, when she got into the light of the bonfire. _Same suit of armor as the ones we found in Solitude, but a slightly different color and a different heraldry._ The symbol on their cuirasses was of an ungulate's head, a stag most likely, with his horns twisting like snakes as they raised. _Falkreath,_ Azrael had said some time before. One of the guards had a closed helmet, but the other had a similar headgear that revealed a young face.

'Halt,' said the one with the closed helmet. The voice suggested a grown man. His tone wasn't hard, however. It was surprised, if anything. 'Who are you, lass? Why are you out here alone?'

Those words were doubtlessly a result of her intended posture. She stopped intentionally, feigning fear, before taking another step closer. 'Where am I, sir?' she asked, casting a sidelong glance at the younger one. She could have played the one with the full helmet as well, but if it came to it, she wanted to have that youngling on her side.

'Why, you're in Falkreath, my lady,' the guard replied. Serana took note of the sudden change from "lass" to "my lady", which was a good marker. The man didn't even seem to remember that she hadn't answered either of his two questions. 'Most of the city is out tonight,' continued the watchman, 'a caravan came by and we took a chance to celebrate. That's why everyone's out here.'

 _They haven't even asked me to lower the hood,_ Serana said to herself. She would have played them around even if, but that wasn't all her. They were just extremely relaxed. _I'll ask of Azrael later._ She looked to the sides, and then brought her eyes back towards the soldier. 'Sir, if I may, the night is dangerous. Why are you two the only ones standing guard?'

'Ha!' said the other, laughing and raising his voice. 'My lady, what need is there of us common folk when the Dragonborn is among us!' He turned around and readily pointed at the side of the cart. 'Look! Over there. He's the one leaning on the wagon.'

Serana looked where she had been pointed, and Azrael was indeed standing next to the wagon. He was resting his shoulder against the wheel, his hood lowered and his hidden eyes wandering over the playing musicians. _He was gotten himself acquainted quite well,_ she thought, suppressing a grin. She wondered for a moment if he had seen her already, but if he had he wasn't giving any signs of it. As per usual, his intentions were unclear, but at least he was there with her. It wasn't a trap, although she had never doubted it. _He places each piece of the mechanism in the environment where he functions best…_ she reasoned. _Perhaps, he needs me at my best this time around._ But to do what? Or perhaps there was something else to what he was doing.

Nevertheless, she would have discovered in due time. She returned her eyes to the guards, not worrying about the time she had spent staring at him. They would have surely interpreted it as either awe or fear. 'I see,' she said, lowering her gaze a little. 'May I join your people? I lost my companion in the woods, but I can't search for him now.' She pressed her crossed arms stronger against her chest. 'I'm cold.'

'Come in, my lady, come in,' said the older guard, stepping aside and leaving a wide space between him and the other watchman. 'Take a seat by the fire and have a mug of something strong. That ought to warm you up.'

She smiled faintly at him. 'Thank you.'

She stepped in between the two. She kept her arms folded and her shoulders hunched, because she could feel their gazes on her back. _It's been a week since we left the Keep._ She sensed the dark energies rising from her body like smoke and clouding everyone around her. Those two men, alone and far from the others, had probably felt it very strongly. _A vampire plays an evil trick. He's cold inside but can make others feel warm._ In theory, and if taken alone, that ability was a precious gift, but in that case it was only the weapon of the monster hiding underneath the fair visage.

Soon enough, she felt the two pairs of eyes leaving her. However, there were already a number of the looking at her from ahead. People in the crowd, seeing her arrive and wondering who she was before catching themselves unexplainably enthralled by that slim frame. _Normal._ She didn't care about it. She straightened her shoulders and uncrossed her arms while also raising her chin and twisting her lips into a smile. It wasn't hard, especially since the music had already had a positive effect on her.

The tune had ended not long ago, she had heard the last notes as she walked past the guards. Now, gazing at the cart and the people traveling in it, she saw the four musicians, the singer and the three mimes that she had spied before. Their faces were rough and their physiques were strong. _Traveling artists, probably rejected sons of farmers and woodcutters._ They were very different from the clean, sophisticated bards that had played instruments in Solitude at the Burning of King Olaf. Her eyes moved almost automatically to the three bows stacked in the back of the wagon. _They don't even have the money to hire a guardian, it would seem._

The crowd wasn't very different. All simple people, with working clothes. There were some young women too, and in any city that was at least a little wealthy, they would have one dress that they would wear in special occasions like those. These ones didn't. They were all daughters of the local workers. _A lot of woods around here,_ she thought. Most of the people living there were loggers and hunters. People who lived out there in their town and didn't often have a chance for merriment like the ones they were offered. _I wonder how much this war they talk about has influenced them._

She shook off her thoughts and listened. There was quite a bit of noise around. 'I say, people,' cried a broad-shouldered man from the side, 'I say, we have the Dragonborn!' His words were almost overwhelmed by the thundering sound of applause, but he raised his tone even more. 'I say to sing and drink to that! Bottoms up!'

'Come on, down the hatch!'

All the people with a bottle or a mug on hand either took a long gulp or emptied what they had left. Serana strolled at the outer rim of the crowd, among some people in the background who stood up in order to see what was going on in the center. _They're having the time of their life, it would seem._ She was looking for a way to get into the crowd quietly and without making a scene. She was noticeable enough just by her outfit, and the less people had a good look at her the better. Both for her and for them.

'Well, well,' said one of the traveling caravan's. The lack of masks and the absence of an instrument meant he was probably a singer. His booming voice was also a hint in that direction. 'If we have the Dragonborn with us, nothing better than the Tale of Tongues! Are you up for that, mates?' he asked to the musicians. They all nodded energetically. 'Then,' the man continued, 'let it be! But first…' He stole a lingering, smiling glance at the crowd, sweeping his gaze across the entire semi-circle. 'First, we will need a lass to sing alongside! The Tale of Tongues is always better as a duet! I propose—'

He stopped in his tracks because the blare that had come from the gathering was too loud even for him. Serana squeezed in between two people, and looked at the events while standing in the background and grinning. It might have been true that those people were ignorant, narrow-minded simpletons, but they were Nords just like her and she felt alive among them. The energy, the strength she sensed were something fresh and blissful. Even their confused screams, of men vouching for someone and of ladies proposing themselves as the candidate, was something that made her happy. It was a mess, but a good mess. She wasn't able to explain it.

'People, people!' the singer called one once again. _You're good in rhetoric,_ Serana conceded, _but you made a mistake just a moment ago._ He was now trying to fix it in any way he could. Or maybe that had been his plan all along, to generate so much enthusiasm to choke even him. 'Good people of Falkreath, listen to me!' The agitation of the crowd had been cooled enough so that his voice could once again be heard. 'You have an iron gut to want to do it, but I say…' he paused briefly. 'I say… we let the Dragonborn himself choose!'

A blare even louder raised from the gathering. Serana felt her lips tightening in the attempt to stiffen her face and muffle the noise. Her enhanced hearing wasn't doing her any good in that situation. _How unbelievable is it, that giving the choice in the hands of another is even more thrilling that having to have to choose._ There were many more things. _Just imagine the girl who's going to be chosen by this land's savior in the flesh. How good that would feel._ And Azrael was one to do things on impulse. He had foreseen that coming there would yield that result. It was very true that his plans often harmed others, but in that moment he was using his reputation to maximum effect. _And if he knew that by bringing me here he would have made me this happy…_ Because she was. She was tense, but she was happy. The memory of his outburst wasn't so scary anymore.

Azrael had risen from his leaning position and was now carefully scrutinizing the crowd, searching for a candidate. Serana, as it happened when they managed to breach a problem together, felt as if she could sense the light-heartedness of both herself and him. _And let's face it, he didn't come here for these people. He came here for me._ How confusing he was, but in his own way a great person. _Most people would have sulked for weeks after such a breakdown. And yet there he is, calm._ And he was calm, she could tell. She alone could tell among all of those people. _You felt like you couldn't give me what I wanted, and you used your intellect to make up for that._ Even in those small things, he remained the smartest and most far-sighted individual she had known.

Azrael brought his armored fingertips together in front of his chest. Serana had been lost in thought, and only now became aware of one thing. She had drifted off into her mind with booming cries all around her. But now, there was dead silence. No one was speaking. She easily picked up the shortened breathing and racing heartbeat of the four people surrounding her, but that wasn't an option for everyone. _A sentimental mortal who's a bit hard of hearing would sweat that the wind has stopped blowing._ The sort of connection she had persisted, and she felt exuberant as a direct response to the extent of her companion's control over the people in front of him.

Azrael moved his eyes past the people on her left, and then her gaze crossed and locked with his. 'That one,' he said, disjointing his hands and pointing with his left index exactly in Serana's direction.

 _No, no, wait…_ Her thought was cut clear off when something, possibly a hand, struck her back and pushed her forward. She stumbled forward, and a surge of energy coming form her vampiric core prevented her from putting her feet down right on the wrist of boy that was sitting in front of her. She raised her left arm to keep her balance, but that shove had awakened her instincts. She had better not show too much of her nimbleness or things might have gone sour, but as long as she avoided crushing anyone's bones, nobody would have complained. _Was someone stupid enough to push me forward?_ It seemed the only explanation possible. On the other hand, her mind was slightly clouded by the new wave of insanely loud noise that had come from the crowd, although it rose and lowered at intervals. The sound was drilling a hole into her ears.

'The Dragonborn has eyes like a bird of prey, it seems!' the caravan's singer was crying above the yells. 'Come closer, my dear!' he said, and Serana caught a glimpse of him making a gesture at her. She raised her gaze and looked in his direction. 'And such a fine lass!' he shouted to the crowd in response.

Serana quickly shifted her eyes to Azrael. He could see underneath her hood a lot better than anyone there, and she looked at him questioningly. New shouts came from the gathering and someone in particular cried above the others, but she didn't listen. She kept her focus on him, but apparently in vain. The Dunmer didn't move an inch, but she could somehow tell that he was slightly amused. Not in a mocking way, though. It was as if he had been smiling teasingly.

She quickly turned around, not willing to ignore the attention of the people any longer. _I'm not afraid,_ she realized upon wondering what she was feeling. She was surprised, yes, but she didn't mind being at the center of the attention. Furthermore, there was something coming from the deepest depth of her flesh, which was reveling in the notice she was receiving and enjoying the prospect of the power she could have held over that audience. Those things combined gave her the strength. She beamed down at the people in between her and the cart, who quickly moved to the sides leaving her the space to walk freely. A lot of space. _And Azrael was right again. Regardless of me being a vampire, the reactions I elicit are the ones that a princess would get. There is still something about me that screams royalty._

'Come here, young lady!' the singer had sat on the side of the wagon now, and had extended an arm in her direction. 'Come closer.' He was loud and sure of himself, but Serana wouldn't have said he was a man of the ladies. And there was something else. She looked carefully at him for a moment and she could read his thoughts on his forehead. _I would try to have you,_ she read, _but I'm too afraid that the Dragonborn already has you._

Among all that, there was one problem that she didn't know how to solve yet. _The Tale of Tongues, he said. I imagine it's a song._ But she didn't know it. All the people of Skyrim apparently knew it, but she didn't. Something clicked. _That's what made you so amused, wasn't it, Azrael?_ He had chosen her knowing that the lie she would have to weave to get out of that situation would have been entertaining. _But again, it wasn't malevolent._ He knew she could, and he was just playing around. He had done something that was the equivalent of asking her, 'Entertain me.' _I'm fine with that, actually._ She made the last steps to reach the side of the wagon.

'There you are!' The singer's hand grasper her shoulder and shook her before letting her go. There was a huge smile on his mouth. He was a fair-skinned, chestnut-haired young man with strong jaws and wide brow. 'So? When shall we start?'

Serana felt a surge of excitement, because despite the embarrassed facade she would have to put on, she was about to captivate that crowd and there was something that felt blissful about it. She brought her feet closer to one another and lowered her gaze ever so little. 'Sir,' she said, 'I am immensely regretful, but I do not know the Tale of Tongues.'

On her side, the crowd fell silent for a moment. Some voices lingered, probably unaware of what she had said, but before they could die out a low buzz had risen. The songster, similarly, had appeared shocked for a moment but had recovered his smiling demeanor in an instant. 'How can you not know?' he said, chortling friendly. 'It has been sung all winter!'

'I know, sir, but I was away. I was in Cyrodiil during the year we left behind us, and during the winter I was on a journey to come back here.' She needed to conclude with something that would justify any incoherencies with what she had said and the state of the world. 'It's a long story,' she thus added, 'and it wasn't easy.'

'From Cyrodiil?' the man asked, his features assuming a perplexed expression. He was not suspicious, however. Serana felt her energies starting to have an effect on him. He was blinking too many times for it to be natural. 'How did you get here from Cyrodiil with the Pale Pass closed off?'

 _Of course, there had to be something,_ Serana thought, but the annoyance was almost entertaining. 'Yes, I know…' she whispered, making the time that she would need to think seem like time spent in not so happy memories. However, she kept smiling. She didn't want to come across as a torment soul, but as a adventurous yet delicate woman. So far, it had worked. 'I had to come here by ship.'

The eyes of the songster half-closed. 'Through the waters of the Aldmeri Dominion?'

She had heard the name, Azrael had talked about it, but she didn't know how the Nords felt towards it. However, there was a trace of hatred in the man's words. 'Of course not,' she replied sharply, feigning a little of repressed offense. 'I had to travel to High Rock and take a ship from there.' She observed the man's face, and this time it was impressed but not puzzled. That was one plausible. She could finish it from there. 'I'm on my way back to the Rift,' she continued. 'I disembarked in Solitude three weeks ago. I took the long way home because I hear the Whiterun border is unsafe.'

'Stromcloaks…' a voice murmured amidst the crowd.

The singer didn't pay attention to it. He seemed to only have eyes for Serana, and he kept looking intently as if lost in his dreams. When he awoke, he seemed to have been torn off from a place much better than the one he was in. But, once again, he regained his composure quickly. 'Very well, fair lady, I dare say you are justified. Here,' he gestured one of the bards, the one with the lute, which picked up a book with a green cover and handed it to Serana directly. 'Page seven,' said the songster.

 _Songs of Skyrim: Revised,_ the title read. It was fairly new, certainly much more than her mother's tomes. She opened it with care and turned one leaf after the other. _Ragnar the Red,_ the first song was titled. _The Dragonborn Comes_ followed and in the page afterwards there was another one by the name of _The Age of Aggression._ The one that followed was a long song in a strange tongue. _The sound…_ she though, trying to read it. It was Dragon Tongue. Two pages after, _The Tale of Tongues_ was in front of her. She rose her eyes on the singer. 'Go,' she said. 'I'll sing along.'

A thrumming of the lute started it. She turned her head around and looked at the words, listening. The singer soon began.

 _Alduin's wings, they did darken the sky…_

Serana nodded to herself. The tempo was easy enough. She loved to sing back when she was a girl. She hadn't done it in a long time. She read and followed along.

 _His roar fury's fire, and his scales sharpened scythes.  
_ _Men ran and they cowered, and they fought and they died.  
_ _They burned and they bled as they issued their cries._

The people were whispering the words as well.

 _We need saviors to free us from Alduin's rage,  
_ _Heroes on the field of this new war to wage.  
_ _And if Alduin wins, man is gone from this world,  
_ _Lost in the shadow of the black wings unfurled._

 _But then came the Tongues on that terrible day.  
_ _Steadfast as winter, they entered the fray.  
_ _And all heard the music of Alduin's doom,  
_ _The sweet song of Skyrim, sky-shattering Thu'um._

 _And so the Tongues freed us from Alduin's rage,  
_ _Gave the gift of the Voice, ushered in a new Age!  
_ _And if Alduin's eternal, then eternity's done,  
_ _For his story is over and the Dragons are gone._

The lute quieted down after the voices faded away into the final sound. Serana raised her eyes from the page, with nothing more to read from it. She found the people in front of her as if hypnotized, their eyes opened wide and an expression of peace on their faces. _Their fear of the Dragons was strong, if being reminded of their defeat brings this much relief._ Still the sound of the string was dying away with the wind, and none moved. Not even the kids. And there was something she deemed very good in all of that. No part of that calm was because of her or the strange powers that were hidden inside of her. It had been the music, and all that it had arisen in their hearts.

One man, the broad-shouldered one who had been screaming for a song to the Dragonborn as she had arrived, was strong enough to break the spell and cast a new one in its place. A rough-faced worker, with a strong upper body and black hair. He had a prominent chin a strong jaw. He was one who dictated rules, if not by nature then by habit, and he did that time, too. He clapped once. Just once was enough. As he clapped twice, three more had joined him. As he repeated it for the third time, twenty more had joined.

It wasn't long before a mighty applause overwhelmed every other sound Serana could hear in the still evening air. In the background, a little girl no more than six years of age, shook her mother's arm and pointed vehemently in her direction, crying something in the woman's ear, who nodded in turn. Serana felt her grin widening. The overwhelm, the guilt, they were all evaporating in the thundering sound of those hands clapping and the shouts of the crowd. There was something in her mind that was cooling down her fears. _I know none of these people, but I feel like I belong here._ And it had been so long since she had dared feeling like that.

'Dragonborn!' screamed the broad-shouldered man. 'Dragonborn, a story!'

Another cheer came from the gathering. That defeating noise didn't seem to be about to stop. Serana turned around in the songster's direction, closing the open book in her hand and raising it higher. She found the man's gaze as soon as she shifted. He was smiling radiantly, it she didn't find it too difficult to find in his eyes the same sense of satisfaction that she had felt herself. _I quite like him,_ she thought, finding that reciprocity rather warming. 'Thanks,' she said, raising to book enough so that he could grab it.

'Oh, thank you,' he said, grabbing the tome. He glanced at the back of the cart and threw it before turning back towards her. 'You were extraordinary! Ever thought of applying to the College up in Solitude?'

Serana had to think of something, but she found an answer almost on the tip of her tongue. Fortunately, she had already introduced herself as a traveler. 'Not a lot of free time in my trade,' she said, with a smile. 'I'll certainly think about it, though.'

'Well,' said the man, 'all the luck in the world to you. You seem a good person.' He glanced to his right and his smile took on a jokingly malevolent twist. 'You had better get back into the crowd now. The Dragonborn's going to take the stage.'

She bowed her head courteously and stepped forward. She followed the side of the cart, but she didn't return from the way she had come. There were several reasons that made it a better decision. She didn't want to come in contact twice with the same people, and she didn't want to run into Azrael as she walked back. If the man had glanced that way, it meant he was coming. A glance too long between them, and someone might have suspected something. _Although, I could relax a little more,_ she thought, letting go of those thoughts. _I'm not at the Court. Nobody here lives to spy on their neighbor._ She saw several heads turned towards her with the corner of her eye, but just the ones who weren't shouting indistinctly.

'My lady!' She rose her gaze in search of the voice that had spoken. 'My lady, here!' She found it thanks to that second call. It belong to a relatively young man that sat near the left edge of the semi-circle of people. His cries had gone mostly unnoticed in all the noise. Serana looked, and noticed he was beating with a hand against the grass by his side, as if telling her to sit there.

She went his way without saying a word. _It's a good thing, actually._ Being alone with just another person would most likely distance other people who might have come to her. Moreover, one person was easier to control. If he became suspicious, she could have easily thwarted his attempts. He was there alone, and the long tunic he wore suggested he might have been a scholar or a mage. _Azrael could understand a lot more, but that is all I can gather._ Although, even from that, it was plausible that he was somewhat literate and that his intent was in some ways made of curiosity. _I can handle that. He could probably be of use, too._

She neared him and kneeled beside him. 'Yes, sir?' she said.

The man smirked. 'Oh, I'm not a sir, my lady. No, no, I just wanted to ask you to sit down here. You seem new to this place, and perhaps I could help.'

Serana gave him a nod and smiled faintly. 'It will be my pleasure.' She turned and sat on the grass, which was dry but yet soft. She liked it a lot more than the stone slabs of the road, on which most of the people there were sitting. 'Who are you?' she asked, crossing her legs and grabbing her knees with her hands.

'You could say I'm a historian. I am very interested in the history of this town and the area surrounding it.' He glanced in the cart's direction, and his lips closed tight for a moment. 'I think I'll have to tell you later. The Dragonborn will speak shortly.'

Serana looked ahead. Azrael had walked up to the spot where she had stood a moment before, more or less, and was resting comfortably against the side of the cart. The caravan's singer, who had been sitting on the side as they sang, had now withdrawn to a much greater distance from the guest. _Yeah, he's well wished but nobody has yet got close to him._ Respect and awe mixed with fear, and that resulted in no one daring to get close. 'What did they mean when they asked him for a story?' she asked at the man, voicing a question she had kept for herself ever since she had heard the broad-shouldered man talk.

The historian scoffed, amused. 'The Dragonborn's an eerie fellow. He rarely shows up anywhere and there are more rumors about him than any other living or dead person I know, but when he does appear he sometimes likes to tell one of his adventures. Nobody knows which of his tales are made up and which are not. We never ask, and he said clearly that only a few of them are true.'

The man went silent, and once again he joined the compete lack of noise of the people there. _It's like their mouths have been sown shut,_ Serana thought. Once again, she cold hear some people's breathing and their hearts beating. _Our scholar here isn't one to get emotional,_ she thought, listening to his relaxed breaths and his steady heartbeat. She didn't linger on it, because there mere hearing made the taste of blood appear in her mouth and vicious thoughts came to the surface. _Just don't think about it._ She batted her eyelids and then rose her eyes on Azrael.

'Let's see…' he whispered. Even his appearance made it overly clear that he didn't fit in that place. All those people with their simple clothes and with at most a dagger by their side were one thing. Serana, with her elaborate cuirass and battle attire was already exotic enough, but Azrael, donning his dark suit of armor, shaded with red and with his black hood and cloak, was out of place. 'There are some stories of interest,' he said, coating his words with a cryptic note that made them somewhat suspenseful. 'However, I think I'll leave my experience behind for tonight and instead tell you of a story that has to do with the most relevant thing that is happening in the world.' He swept his eyes across the semi-circle. 'The vampires.'

Serana felt her muscles in the face and throat moving emptily. She had tried to sigh and to swallow almost simultaneously, but there wasn't any air in her lungs and even less saliva in her mouth. The grip on her hands on her knees had got stronger, and she lessened it. _Let's see what games he plays at this time. Because he is playing one, that's beyond obvious._

'There was once a Dunmer, like myself,' Azrael said, expertly moving his gaze between the people listening. 'He had been alerted of the existance of a vampire coven, a vicious group, who were searching for something in a crypt long forsaken by any common man or mer. He had the support of friends who would help him in this task, and that had told him that a most dangerous secret was held in that crypt. He went, but to his surprise didn't find a long forgotten vampiric weapon or an enchanted suit of armor. Instead, he found a woman. A princess of the vampires. A woman as beautiful as she was dangerous. Now, this Dunmer wasn't someone who was faint of heart. His mind was focused on his task, which was to eradicate the vampires in any way he could. So, without consulting his allies, he offered the princess to accompany her home. Little did she know that he was doing this with the sole intent of finding her home and slaying anyone inside.'

'Such an evil man…' muttered someone on the side with a bitter tone.

Serana turned in time to see a woman staring stunned at him. 'They're vampires, you idiot! I think he was justified.'

'Hush,' someone said from the side. 'Keep your opinions to yourself, we want to know how this ends.'

All heads turned once again towards Azrael. 'As I was saying,' he continued, 'he meant to slay everyone. He succeeded in his plan and managed to be guided safely to their fortress, but once there he was ambushed. The princess he had rescued bared her fangs for the first time since they had met and bit him.'

'Did she—'

'Oh, yes,' Azrael said, cutting off the one who has spoken and guessing his thought. 'Of course, she turned him into a vampire as well, but she never intended for him to survive. It was the princess's father, a man who found power one of the most alluring thing in the world, who chose to save him. He also had devised a plan to make so he would be an eternal pawn to him. Unluckily for him and luckily for the rest of the living, he was wrong. My brother in blood did the only thing the king of the vampires had not thought of, and that was asking for help. He surrendered to someone else's judgment and emerged unscathed, and only then did he continue his journey, now with a mind clearer than before. And it was from that moment that he began to think of his plot; of his colossal, fiery vengeance. There was one thing that clouded his judgment and more than once stopped him from moving forward. And that was, most surprisingly, the princess herself. Seeing her for something that nobody in her life had managed to see, he began to value her, even if at first he couldn't admit it. Not even to himself.'

Serana looked at him, once again pausing and letting his eyes sweep across the silent crowd.

'A long time went by, and they got closer as the weeks went by. This Dunmer found out that the princess wasn't so happy in that castle. He discovered that she was to be the sacrifice needed for the vampire's king plans to unfold. The lord wanted to blot out the Sun, make it disappear from this world. And he would have willingly sacrificed his only daughter's life for it. Both outcasts, both feeling that they weren't part of that new future, my brother in blood and the princess continued serving the lord of the vampires, but also hatched a plan to kill him. In time, through endless struggles and many fights, they forgave one another for what they had done. But, as you can imagine, their troubles were hardly over. Especially for the Dunmer, who couldn't side any more with the mortals, now that he had become their sworn enemy and had chosen one of the vampires as his companion. And so, he decided to destroy them both.'

A murmur ran across the crowd.

'In a night of death and blood, he drew both of his enemies out and slew them. All of them. The good ad the bad, the living and the undead. He had torn down the sign at the crossing who told him to go one way or the other. He trampled everything in order to see that new future. And with his enemies gone, he returned to the vampire's king, burned his castle to the ground and killed him.'

Once more, for the third time since she had arrived, Serana heard the silence descend. It was utter, just as the two times before it. However, this once she hardly noticed it. It seemed that most of what had happened that evening had suddenly disappeared into the recess of her memories. Very little of it remained. Incredibly, the melody of the song was among those things, and it still played out in her head. The rest was nothing but haze.

'And how did it end between the princess and the Elf?'

Serana turned towards the man who had asked. Azrael had done so, too. 'What do you think?' he asked.

'It should be obvious, shouldn't it?' shouted a woman from the other side of the gathering. 'With that much secrecy and such a adventure in common? They would love each other and possibly live happily ever after! I would dig a ditch and stick my head in it if I were that Elf and it didn't end like this!'

A laughter ran across the crowd. As the broad-shouldered man's clap had broken the spell before, this time the effort was common. As the giggles ended among the people, the usual round of applause came. Serana heard that now everyone immediately joined them. There were people who had been left pensive, and that joined the round of cheers either mindlessly or distractedly. They were few and far between, however, as nearly everyone was now joining the ovation.

'All hail the Dragonborn!'

'All hail the Dragonborn!'

Serana drifted away, somewhere far away from those cries and that sound. Her eyes caught Azrael saying something, but she wasn't really looking. She didn't even listen. _What did you just do?_ He hadn't doomed her to a burning stake, there was that. _He hasn't revealed anything that might suggest a similarity between that tale and our journey._ There would be some people able to understand it, but none of those loggers, smiths, hunters and bards would have ever tried to piece together that story with what was happening. No, he had not played against her. What he had told was a riddle, a riddle meant for her. _Yes, he has left a good number of people waiting with bated breath, but he would have had something better. That was meant for me._

If anything, because of one detail. He had told the end of the story. He had gone beyond the point where their journey aligned with what he had told. He had made a piece of it up. _But not just for the sake of it._ It was enigmatic to say the least, but in a way incredibly clear. _The vampires will be lured out and will fight the mortals… The Dawnguard, then._ They would fight one another and the Dunmer would slaughter them. _And after that, Castle Volkihar will be demolished._ But those weren't the words. _Burnt to the ground._ But how could the entire Keep and the Castle behind be erased? There was no weapon able to do that. _Not even the magic of the Dragons,_ she mused, _given that he hasn't got anything even more powerful up his sleeve._

One thing, however, seemed overly clear. _The ending of that story wasn't meant as wishful thinking. It was a prophecy._ The Scrolls were theirs, and the foretelling that her father was pursuing could have been thwarted. Azrael meant to thwart it, and the ending of that story was his retelling of that prophecy.

She focused back on her senses. The people around her had risen to their feet and were walking around. She tried to look in between them, trying to see the side of the cart. The bards were on it, talking among themselves. _It's probably all over,_ she thought. It wasn't long before the darkness of the night would take over completely. However, she was only looking for one person. She didn't see Azrael near the side of the wagon anymore. A tremor ran across her. Unexplainably, some of her liveliness had come back, but in a different form. That night was a night of cycles, and just as the silence has been repeated three times, not for the second time she had the same goal. _I have to find Azrael._

She turned around to her left. The historian was still there, and he was one of the ones who were sitting with a pensive look. 'Where did the Dragonborn go?' she asked him.

The man shifted his gaze slowly. 'Behind the cart,' he said distractedly. His lips were closed tight and his eyes were half-closed. He was thinking. He was thinking about the story that Azrael had told, but there wasn't a way for him to fully understand it. There were very few people in the world who could have, and he was certainly not one of them.

Serana rose to her feet and tried to look towards the wagon, which was made difficult by all the people moving across. _I guess the fun's over,_ she thought, seeing no other motive for everyone to get up from the ground. The bards in the cart were still talking, and they didn't seem to be willing to play anything else. The bowl they had left beside for anyone willing to leave tips was overflowing with small gold coins, and they would have had a place to stay in the city for the night. _But that doesn't concern me,_ Serana said to herself, as her eyes moved repeatedly over the wagon but never stopping on it. She stepped to the right, nearer to the bonfire, where there weren't as many people, but she couldn't see Azrael anywhere. _He's probably leading me to a secluded spot. Fine._

She walked ahead, keeping an eye out for any movements in the trees, where he was most likely to have gone. Unlike the other side, which had that large clearing resulting from the cutting down of the trunks, the opposite area of the road had a thick forest right at its fringes. _Quite easy for him to disappear over there._ She had once seen him use a spell that made his entire frame, including the weapons he carried, completely transparent. He wasn't short on means to completely vanish, both literally and metaphorically, but he wasn't far regardless. _He… Or should I say we, have a language of our own. He wants me to find him._

She walked past the last group who had gathered near the wagon. None of them looked at her, luckily enough, and she kept advancing. _It's a matter or going away quickly._ If the people's heads cleared out enough, somebody might have head the idea of finding the young woman who had sang and bring her in town. She tiptoed past the wagon and then slipped behind it, slowing down a little bit. _Perfect. Out of sight, out of mind._ She couldn't go away for too much time if she wanted to come back afterwards if her cover was to remain, but she didn't think she would have to go back. Whereas before she had felt part of that gathering, now there was a predominant sense of distance.

She entered the trees, and immediately her eyes sizzled, making the world spark with a reddish light. _Much better,_ she thought, advancing with care and casting vigilant glances around. The trunks were densely covered by moss and their foliage was thick, blocking even the faintest light of the stars. _Where are you?_ she called in her mind. She didn't say it aloud. She was still too close to the inhabitants of the town, and something told her that Azrael wouldn't have answered. _It's a game, still. Maybe it's his way to ease the tension._

The sound made by the people talking faded gradually as she went deeper into the woods. Initially, there had been rays of light coming from the bonfire that had seeped through the trunks and the leaves on the lower branches, but now nothing more came through. The plants made up the horizon all around her, and there was something alienating about that same thing repeating. _I can turn around how much I like, but it seems I'm always going in the same direction no matter what._ There was a dense smell of humid and stagnating water, which she sensed even through her reduced sense of smell.

She cast a sweeping glance around her, and she spotted a small clearing slightly to the left. The moonlight was shining in it, and she glimpsed at a black frame emerging from behind a tree. There was a dense black shape on one side and a more jagged one popping out of the opposite side of the trunk. _There you are._ She turned and circled around, acquiring a better sight of him as she moved parallel to him. She felt herself freezing briefly out of surprise, and at first she didn't even understand exactly why. It was only after that she linked that moment of hesitation with the fact that he had his hood falling back on his back and his face in the full light. His skin was even paler with the moon illuminating it.

'Here I am,' she said, briefly touching his gauntlet. She stepped in front of him and then spun around to face him. She beamed at him, and she didn't manage to hide the playful twist from her lips. She looked at him right in the eyes.

Azrael looked back, and she didn't feel like she could have moved them away. It did happen that people who locked eyes with him had difficulties severing the contact afterwards, but this time it was something more powerful. As unnatural as they were with those fiery flows streaming in the irises and those pupils that were vertical like the of a snake, they were entangling. However, the gaze that came from them wasn't the same. There wasn't any chilling frost or any blazing flames; in their stead, a cool breeze and a warm gust seemed to irradiate from them directly into her very soul.

At one point, she felt her hands quivering. She was shaking faintly all across her body. No one else would have managed to notice it, but it was all too real for her. _As I said to him before, it's hard to wait._ And yet, Azrael seemed perfectly at ease. It seemed to be all the same to him. His hands were behind his back and against the tree. He was open. _Yes, it's my choice to make. He has told me what he means to do to my home. I could just kill him now._ And while it was a very sentimental concept, the idea of surrendering to someone else, she knew that wasn't the case with him. _He knew it would come down to this._ She stepped forward, raising her quaking hands. _He probably knows what I'm about to do as well._ And while she was the one enacting it, it really felt as if he was the one. The puppeteer, the schemer. He was done weaving his reality around her. She was living it in that very moment.

She got closer, enough to feel the cold that came from his armor. As they got close enough, her hands darted upwards to his jaws, and he didn't move by an inch. Their faces neared, and she kept going until her lips found his. She hadn't even been aware that she had closed her eyes shut at one point. Her sight had become a hindrance halfway through. She had never believed those stories when space and time were said to freeze in intense moments. Somewhere in the back of her mind, she sensed that suspicion shatter silently. Time and space did seem to freeze.

At least until she backed away, chuckling under her breath.

'What is it?' Azrael asked.

She let her head rest on his shoulder. His voice had made his entire chest vibrate, which had been strangely pleasant. 'Nothing,' she said, 'just… those two youngsters in the woods.' She raised her eyes. 'Did you meet them?'

'Not the right word,' he whispered, once again making his torso quake. 'I circled around them.' His eyes moved down and locked once more with hers. The junction of heat and cold hadn't gone away. However, she saw what that gaze meant. 'Not now,' he said, making sure it was clear.

She raised a hand to his face once again, but still hesitated before touching it. His skin was dry and tense. It had been a long time since he had fed. _A pity. He looks a lot better soon after feeding._ She stroked his cheekbone and then his beard. 'Not to worry,' she said, smiling. 'Now, unlike before, I can wait.'

* * *

A/N: This came out very long. I could have almost split it in two parts, but I don't think it would have been quite the same.  
Now, for this particular chapter I would like to explicitly ask for feedback to anyone willing to give it. Needless to say that this is a core section of arguably the most important subplot, and I would be glad to hear your opinions on it. Was it too slow? Did the transition from the introduction to the first part of the chapter feel forced? Did the style fit the narration or not? You can answer these or none of them. As always, the means doesn't matter. There's some of you that usually PM me with comments, and that's fine. And, it goes without saying, you're free to not send anything if you don't want to.

See you soon.


	25. Chapter XXIV: Forerunner of Fate

Chapter XXIII: _Forerunner of Fate_

* * *

Incredibly, there was some snow still intact as they entered. Serana felt it cracking under Azrael's boot before she could see it herself. It was a thin layer, uneven and flayed by the wind that blew from the North right into the cavern. The crystals were barely emerging from it. _But this light…_ It didn't come from behind them, because the opening in the rock twisted and didn't let a single ray of light in. The brightness came from ahead of them. _Well, we'll see soon enough._ For now though, she emerged from the dark and shook her head to recollect her hair. She had cut them that night, and she needed to get used to them. 'You were saying?' she asked.

'Ignore me,' Azrael said, casting a sweeping glance at their surroundings. 'It was nothing important.' He was paying particular attention to the vegetation, gazing on one of the low firs and then on a series of roots that crossed the path. 'Did you know there is no C in the Draconic Alphabet?'

'Really?' She stepped over the roots, looking at them but no catching what had made them an object of interest for Azrael. 'Is it not used or does it really not exist?'

'There is nothing that corresponds. The Dovahzul doesn't have soft sounds. That makes the presence of that letter pointless, but it intrigued me at first.'

 _No other alphabet I remember lacked letters. It had more, if anything._ The mere fact that the Dragon Language was an alphabet and not a sequence of symbols that weren't letters was new to her. _I guess the Tongues had not yet come._ Dragons weren't a part of anyone's life back when she lived in the Castle. They would sometimes fight among themselves and attack those who breached their territory, but little more. It seemed that a lot of events had gone down since then. The time between midnight and dawn had been definitely too little to even get an initial grasp of it. But they had the time to continue, depending on the outcome of the quest they were currently on.

And as far as she could see, things didn't look too promising. That place was marked by pile of rocks that seemed to be very old. Nobody had been there in a long, long time. 'This place,' she said, 'it's not very impressive, is it? If this ends up being a wasted trip, my friend Dexion and I are going to have some words when we get back.' A couple of thoughts floated through her mind. 'Well, if we get back.'

'Good point,' Azrael said, 'but underneath the surface it does look promising.' After saying that, he stopped in his tracks.

Serana halted behind him. She didn't need to ask why, because she saw a large gap in the terrain that went from their position to where they were heading. The light was still coming from that way, and there weren't any tracks that went round that crevice. 'We can jump, I think,' she said. She didn't understand his uncertainty.

'Down there,' he said, 'there might be a way to read the Scrolls but not one that is assured to leave us in good health. Neither of us is a scholar with the necessary preparation.' He waved his index from one end of the gap to the other. 'If either of us faces unwanted consequences, he might not have the lucidity or the strength to make this jump.' Upon finishing, he turned to his right.

Serana looked at the bottom of the dip. 'You're scaring me a little.'

There was a prolonged sound on her right, and she turned around in a flash. Her eyes focused quickly on one thing at a time, first on Azrael grasping the trunk of a tree and then to roots of that very same tree, torn out of the ground and covered by fungi and parasites. _It's been dead for quite a while._ The Dunmer walked sideways with the trunk firmly in his hands, peaking around it to see where he was going. Once on the edge of the dip, he put the torn roots down onto the ground, let go of the tree and pushed it forward.

The trunk shook the ground as it fell, and its middle section cracked inwards a little bit. 'Let me see if it holds,' he said, stepping on it. The wood was green with moos and rotten, but it had endured the impact and would surely endure the two of them walking on it.

She had a question, but waited for a moment before speaking. Despite his faith in the relevance of the place, it couldn't be denied that it had been long forsaken by whoever had built it. The fact that a fallen, rotten trunk was the only way through the small dip in front of her was proof enough. She stepped on it carefully. Under a living man's weight it might have collapsed on the spot, but two starved vampires could walk on it without too much worry. _Neither of us has fed for a long time,_ she realized, raising her gaze and eyeing Azrael waiting for her on the other side of the dip.

'How are you so certain,' she asked, 'that this place is what we're looking for?'

Azrael turned around, facing the only clear way in between the bushes but casting darting glances around as if searching for something. Serana searched for some kind of link between the things he was looking at, but didn't found any. 'Do you know why they're called Moth Priests?' Azrael asked back, looking one of the plants a little longer and extending a hand towards it.

'No,' she said. She looked carefully at the way he tore a single leaf from the plans and always kept it horizontal. There was something on it, something whitish, and an idea sparked in her mind. 'Do they have something to do with actual moths?'

Azrael closed his index and thumb around the end of the branch that he had torn away with the leaf and turned halfway around, handing the leaf to her. She opened her hand horizontally as he had done and closed her thumb on top of it to make sure it didn't float away. Azrael let go of it, without saying anything else. _There is something I need to see before he can go on explaining._ And there was little doubt that it was the whitish thing that she needed to look at. _And I already have an idea of what it might be._ She retracted her arm and looked carefully, and the small thing glued to the leaf was indeed a small cocoon.

She looked around, with a question bouncing around her mind. 'But, Azrael,' she said, 'why is there a cocoon here and no moths flying around?'

'We're headed towards a source of natural light, so I assume they all gather there. What's more interesting is the cocoon itself. An alchemist once shows me all the cocoons of all the species of butterflies and moths that there are in Skyrim. And yet, I do not remember one that looks that that. It's bigger, paler and it's laid on a leaf instead of in the ground. That's a type of moth that isn't registered anywhere in Skyrim, which in turn means that lives only here. Since there are Moth Priests involved, it seems likely that these species is the one that has ties to them.'

 _Clear and synthetic._ She put the leaf on top of another plant that had a foliage of the same size and followed along, now a bit more hopeful that it was the right place. Azrael had slowed for a moment to observe the rocky passage that they were about to enter. He hadn't found anything wrong with it, it seemed. He took a turn and Serana followed in tow, casting one last glance at the gloomy hollow they had just traversed before taking the turn herself.

Azrael scoffed lowly, and his next two strides were slower and more cautious. 'I think you'll eat right back most of what you just said.' He had reached the end of the passage, where the pathway seemed to widen. He stepped to the side just enough for Serana to get a glimpse before she arrived in his exact spot.

She looked at the glade. The light that came through did indeed come from there. The ceiling, his above them, was cracked in two and the bright of the rising Sun shone through. The place was a hollow with a somewhat circular shape, with multiple levels as it went up towards the opening. From a couple of the ridges, large streams cascaded down into drizzling waterfalls. On the sides, especially towards the bottom there were a few firs that resembled the ones in the cave before in shape but not in size. These were fully grown, and magnificent. At the bottom of the glade, on its lowest level, there was a tree different from all the others she could see. It was a large-leaved plant, but its color was what caught her attention the most. A faint, rosy red.

Something scratched her face on the cheekbone. The sensation had been light and fleeting, but she felt her muscles tightening. 'What…' She backed away, her hand darting up to her face to cover to the spot, but there was no need for it. Whatever it had been, it was no longer on her face. _But what was it?_ She turned still, looking around. She caught a movement on the leaf on a nearby bush, and she observed. 'Wait…' she breathed. It was a large, beautiful moth. 'Are these…'

'They're the moths,' Azrael said, stepping by her side. He pointed towards two trees not too far from the two of them. Serana didn't immediately realize that he wasn't interested in the trees but in the swarm of insects that was flying in between the two.

'You were right,' she said, looking again at the entire glade. 'Nobody's been here in centuries, at least. This was forgotten by everyone except the Moth Priests. I doubt if there's any other place like this in Skyrim.' At the very bottom, there were pools of thermal water emerging from the ground and releasing a steamy mist. Even on the edges, she could feel the air was damp. That faint heat and the sight were affecting her, and more deeply than merely the senses. 'It's beautiful,' she whispered.

She sensed something taking a hold of her hand. _It's him_ , she thought, recognizing the shape and the cold of the metal. Azrael run across the entire width of her palm with his thumb, tracing a cool line that lingered even after he had touched it. She didn't look. She didn't need to. The pressure on her wrist soon disappeared and the Dunmer walked past her, looking to the opposite side. _It's the little things._ The line on her palm lingered until she closed and reopened her hand.

As she moved the first steps, she felt her thoughts claiming her attention. Azrael was leading the way and he would have warned her if anything was wrong. She felt calm, and that was the point. She felt calm. In trying to remember the things she had felt the night that had just gone by, she had troubles identifying herself with the person that had felt them. _I can't know if it's just a momentary thing, of if the change is deep enough to be permanent._ Nevertheless, she felt good in that moment. It was amazing to recognize how the narrowness of her thoughts had been the cause of her suffering in the days before. Her head had been filled with her nostalgia and her tension. Now, despite being both homesick and tense, she felt that she could live with both. They were there, she could feel them, but they weren't her entire reality. The scope, the perspective was important. Never before that moment she had seen things with the right point of view.

She eyed Azrael for a moment, because she had finally come to understand how to assess his role in all of that. _Part of my wellbeing does depend on him, but instead of talking about blame or merit we could simply talk about responsibility. In every meaning of the word._ It was a wise middle ground. Nothing was no longer his fault or his virtue, but merely his responsibility. _Everyone has a role and he has one, too. He can move in both directions, but that doesn't change anything._ It was a plausible thing that his level of tension partially reflected on her, even, and now that he was less nervous she could feel it too. _Once, I said that he had the ability to think for both of us. But never before I had realized that it is me that can feel for both._

The brief time that they had spent after leaving Falkreath, which was less than a quarter of a day, had held more surprises than many of the weeks they had spent together. _He was still the same person._ There hadn't been any radical change. Azrael was still Azrael, with all his particular ways of seeing and thinking things. But again, perspective. What she had experienced for the last hours was an exclusive vantage point. _He showed me a part of him that I doubted even existed._ Under the cold demeanor, which he never abandoned nonetheless, there was a streak of melancholic humor which he often turned into biting sarcasm. Perhaps, under the analytical and investigative viewpoint there was something inside him that was softer. _He's smart, yes, but also very intuitive._ And yet again, for what seemed the hundredth time, Elisif words had come to mind. _The difficulty to merely live,_ she had said, _the unending grief and distress of life._ That was the thing they had shared.

It was all new and curious. And as with many things, the Dunmer had set very clear limits as to what he would allow. She was fine with that. On the other hand, those few hours had been nothing like she had ever imagined. She had envied the couples of which she read in books when she was a girl, but now she suddenly found them pretentious and stupid. _All of that shown affection… It was because they didn't share anything but that._ Azrael and her shared so much more, even if she had been blind to it all that time. They had a common goal, common enemies and above all they were the only two in the world to be aware of secrets that would have ripped countries apart. There wasn't the need for effusions of love. They could stand at several yards from one another and still have a semblance of connection with the other. Right there and then, they were walking down the pathway and she felt as if they were staring one another in the eyes.

'Azrael,' she said, trying to exhale but not finding any air. 'I know Dexion has told me what we need to do, but what exactly does any of that have to do with the Scrolls? Couldn't we just read them?'

He turned halfway around, making a slight waving movement with his hand as if saying that it was close but not quite. 'Perhaps, but I don't want to take any chances. When I read the Scroll, I was at the Time Wound. I suppose that is what made me able to read it. Perhaps this ritual gives us the power to do the same without risking insanity or blindness.'

She furrowed her brow and half-closed her eyes, trying to remember. 'Insanity? When has Dexion ever mentioned someone going insane from reading the Scrolls?'

'Never. I have personal experience with that. I once encountered a mage who had studied them.' He turned around a little again, slowing his pace ever so slightly. 'Studied,' he repeated, 'he had never laid eyes on one, mind you. Merely studying them had driven him mad. When I found him, he was confused and obsessed with something that ultimately proved his undoing.'

'These Dragons seem to have caused quite a handful of issues.'

'Yes, they have,' he said. His tone was pensive, absorbed. 'Even not counting the damage they caused directly, they did rouse troubles. In and of itself, taking down a huge, winged monster that spews fire is difficult on its own for the common folk. I call that a Turdas, but being normal isn't exactly up my alley.'

She chortled lightly, shaking her head and looking around again. They had almost reached the bottom. Aside from the fact that she could see it, she also felt the air becoming hotter and more humid the more they advanced. Azrael was looking at something in the middle of the rise that occupied the center of the glade, and she looked too. It was a stone monolith, carved with symbols that seemed bizarre to her. Most interestingly, it was hollow. She could just about see it, but the stone was pierced from side to side. She glanced at Azrael again, and he was trying to find a way to climb directly there. _Fine by me. I'll look around._

There were some other things that she hadn't seen from above. While so focused on the natural elements, she had almost ignored the few remnants that humankind had left there. There were at least a couple constructions. They were simple, long rocks that had been put on top of one another to form something that resembled a door or a passageway. They were ancient and the fact that they were made of three or four pieces at maximum was telling. They couldn't date back to a time where instruments to cut the rock didn't exist, so that must had been a choice. A choice for simplicity.

 _Well, now I'd like to get close to one of those Canticle Trees._ She had seen one from above, but there were more. She glanced up to where Azrael was and guessed where he had climbed to reach that place. The elevation was simple enough to reach, but most of it was covered in thermal water which flowed out of the pools. She made a long stride to pass though one of the streams and then up a rocky part of the slope. _They're not leaves,_ she saw, seeing the trees up-close. _They're flowers. It's spring, all right, but they might actually bloom for the entire year._ She made the last three steps and reached the level of the roots.

 _It's beautiful._ The stem of the tree was pale, and dotted with spots where the bark was thicker and of a darker color. She raised a hand, and she found herself hesitating before touching it. _I'm not afraid, it's just… reverence, almost._ That plant was incredible. _I don't feel any magic in it, but maybe it's not conventional magic that sustains it._ It didn't look like a normal tree. Although it could be argues that what the Canticle Tree did wasn't exactly magic, there was some form of supernatural element involved. That was what intuition told her. In the end, the plant had roots growing out of what seemed to be only rocks. Unless they penetrated to a deeper stratum of dirt, which she doubted, there was no way for it to be alive.

'Pardon me, princess.'

Serana stepped to the side almost without thinking about it. Azrael came closer to the tree, looking at the trunk specifically. _What's that in his hands?_ He held something, a curved blade that had the shape of a half-moon. Interestingly, it was sharp on the inside of the curve instead of the outside. _It must be the draw knife._ She quickly glanced at her side, suspecting something. The carved stone in the middle of the elevation. The hollow that crossed it was empty, but it was of the perfect size to house that sickle.

Azrael grabbed both handles and laid the knife against the tree with the bent in the blade upwards. He pulled asymmetrically, first down from the right side and then from the left, very lightly, as if testing the balance. He repeated that once more, and then drew down with both hands, pressing with significant strength against the wood. The bark wasn't cut cleanly, and much of it splintered and turned into sawdust. 'The blade is dull,' Azrael told her, without moving his head. He drew down again, this time managing to cut away a sold layer. He raised the blade to its starting position and pulled down, focusing on the existing slice. He repeated it twice, but the trees' husk wouldn't detach. As he pulled down for the third time, the bark fell down.

 _Third time's the charm,_ Serana said to herself, extending a hand his way. Azrael nodded and gave her the knife, holding it from one of the two handles and leaving the other for her. 'And now what?' she asked, as she took the weapon. 'The moths should start coming to you?'

He flipped the piece of bark twice in his hands, looking at it from all directions. Serana felt her lips tightening. _If only I could see all the things that he's seeing._ To her, that was just a piece of a magical trees' bark. It was something special, but there wasn't anything beyond it. The Dunmer raised his hidden face and looked her way. 'Apparently so,' he answered. He bent his head to the side. 'Come. Let us see.'

She glanced at the slice of bark. but there didn't seem to be anything visibly unique about it. It was just a piece of wood, and easily mistakable as something that came from a normal tree. There were jagged dents on the inside, where Azrael had pressed with the blade for the first few times. _Doesn't look special, but since it's coming from a tree that doesn't need any terrain to grow, it might be worthy of our trust._ She raised the draw knife higher and looked at it. That didn't seem special either. She walked towards the stone in the middle, still looking at the ceremonial weapon with a bit of skepticism.

 _We shall see soon enough._ She put back the knife in the circular hollow where she presumed Azrael had picked it. The semi-circular shape fit perfectly. _This must be it._ She had not asked before the Dunmer hadn't said anything. She had assumed that if he had judged the task of putting the weapon back just a tiny bit too difficult, he would have instructed her. He hadn't, so it was fine to follow her intuition. _If I had to consciously remember all the details and circumstantial rules of our communication, I think I'd go mad._ But since she hadn't and those details were part of her normal thoughts, everything was fine. In some ways, more than fine.

She heard a snarling sound coming from her right. It as a scoff, but Azrael's raspy tone had made it seem like a growl. 'I suppose you would have liked this,' he said as she was turning towards him to see what was happening. 'I already loathe these irritating little insects…'

When she turned, she immediately saw something strange on Azrael's frame. As if guided by the words she had said, her eyes looked for the insects that had been mentioned, and found them quite quickly. A swarm of moths not unlike the ones she had seen in between the two trees had surrounded him. Some were walking around on his armor and cloak and some were flying very close to him. Serana could count a dozen at the very least, and there seemed to be more coming from a nearby shrub.

Azrael was absolutely right. _I would have really liked it._ A girl who didn't enjoy luring butterflies onto her palms or fingers was a girl without a childhood, in her book. _And now, magically, swarms of them arrive._ She felt her mouth stretched into a smile and she chuckled. 'They really like you, don't they?'

'If I didn't need them I'd squeeze them like the bat…' He let the sentence drop and his words faded, echoless. He turned his head around, and a moth which was advancing on his pauldron took flight at the sense of the air moving. Serana felt his gaze in her eyes and didn't move them, leaving him the time to think. 'I have never told you that story, have I?'

He had said that more to himself than her, in truth, but she was too curious to keep silent. 'Which story? And how are bats involved in anything that's worth telling?'

Azrael turned around and repeatedly moved his head around, probably searching for more swarms of moths. He walked forward, following the course of a small creek that came from a hole in the stone walls of the glade. 'That fight is actually the beginning of this whole story, for me. It was my first encounter with a Volkihar vampire, and it was quite the presentation. I found a corpse, not too far from the crypt where you were sealed. I followed the trail of blood, and it led me to the temporary refuge of a vampire.'

'And how do you know he was part of the Volkihar?'

'Well,' he said, with a sarcastic undertone. Serana knew at once that she had asked a question that had some very obvious answers. 'He was wearing the same suit of armor that I have seen you and your father wear, for one. Secondly, he transformed into the Vampire Lord halfway through the fight.' He threw a backward glance at her.

She didn't find any words for a brief moment. 'You… You defeated a member of the court singlehandedly, while not yet—' Something came to her. _Yes, of course… How could I have been so blind?_ 'Azrael, wait… Was he an Altmer? Tall, high cheekbones, just… An Altmer?'

'Indeed. A sorcerer, versed in shock and ice magic. He didn't carry any weapons.'

'Angaron…' A rustling sound reached her ears, but she couldn't link it to anything. She wasn't really looking anywhere because the image of High Elf was lingering in front of her eyes. _How long have I wondered where he had ended up? My father and I assumed he was gone but…_ She moved her lips wordlessly, until one sound escaped them. 'Dead.' She batted her eyelids. _And he was the one. He took down that beast by himself._

'You knew him.'

'Yes, I…' she said, raising her head, but she stopped once again. At first, she only noticed that the rustling sound had been Azrael turning suddenly and making his cloak whirl. But in seeing the cloak, she also noticed something off with the light. There was a yellow light that was coming from Azrael's frame. 'Azrael, you're…' All around him there was a halo of light. 'You're glimmering.'

He slowly raised his left gauntlet, bringing it up all the way to the height of his eyes. He rotated it in both directions, and with every movement the moths that were walking on his body rose into the air and joined the others, only to come down moments later. There were more than forty surrounding him now. 'Am I?' the Dunmer said, lowering his forearm. 'I can't see it.'

'I don't know,' she said, hesitating. 'Maybe it can only be seen from the outside, I have no idea. If Dexion was here, he would know,' she said dryly, twisting her lips into a sardonic smile. 'Well, I can only think of it as a good thing. At least something seems to be happening, and something is better than nothing at this stage.'

'I concur,' he said, glancing around. 'You haven't answered me, though. Did you know this Altmer?'

 _You had not posed a question in the first place,_ she thought, but laughed at that silently and didn't mention it. 'I did, in fact. He is, shall we say, an original member of my father court. He was there with us the day we were turned, and he accepted my father's offer to join the new family.' Even after all that time, she still found it difficult to find adequate words to describe those events. 'He was a very proficient fighter, and he knew magic extremely well. He had a sort of instinctual, natural inclination towards the arcane arts. He never studied them in depth or theoretically perfected their use, he just used them as he could and was good at it. He had one flaw, and that was his fiery temper; as my father tells it, he has grown even more irritable over the centuries. I can only imagine the extent of his anger as he fought.' She halted for a moment. 'How did you defeat him, anyway?'

'I'd say knowledge, but you could consider it luck. He disarmed and had the upper hand, but instead of killing me…' Azrael brought his left hand up again and raised the middle and the index finger, keeping them tight together. He beat with them three times on the side of his throat. 'He bit me.'

A sour taste filled her mouth, and her throat closed as if something from her stomach was crawling back up her esophagus. _It's the most unpleasant thing ever._ She tried to swallow, but there was no saliva. 'Did he end up like I did?' she asked.

'Not quite. He ended up like the one who bit me in Dimhollow. As soon as he realized that something was wrong he backed up, but it was too late. I managed to kill him while he was still weakened.' He sniggered grimly, although absently. 'It still took one of the most experienced healers in Skyrim a full night to make me walk again. It wasn't easy.'

Serana looked at him for a while, sensing her jaws closed tight. _I just don't…_ She shook her head. 'You're mad.'

'Good,' he whispered. 'Life has nothing in store for the sane.'

'I suppose that's good consolation,' she said, laughing. 'Those moments when you don't really have a choice…'

The sudden movement Azrael had made might have hinted at something being wrong, but she didn't need any hinting. She had heard it too. Several muffled sounds. She had felt them through the terrain rather than the air. The sound of the waterfalls made it hard to detect anything else in the damp air. The ground however, perfectly still until a few moments before, had started to quake so faintly that none other than a blood-starved vampire would have noticed it. Both her and Azrael's senses were sharp as a razor in that moment, and they had both felt that vibration. A repeated movement. A repeated movement that could have been unmistakably divided into multiple pairs.

 _Footsteps._ There was no other solution. She looked at Azrael for confirmation. He seemed to have noticed it just a moment before she had, and his eyes had darted to the only entryway into the glade. _Yes, footsteps._ For what other reason would he be searching for someone that was entering? She couldn't tell if the tremors had come from there, but where else? Unless a very big animal was stomping right outside of the opening on the cavern's ceiling, that passage was the only way the footsteps might have come from. _And also… What big animal? These are dozens of footsteps._ No, those were mortals. Humanoids. A lot of them. _The scent of blood…_ Their trace was filling the air, a mixture of fear and something else, something that caused them to tighten their muscles. _Frustration._ They were afraid and tired. She could smell it in their whiff, although she couldn't hear it in their strides. Those were regular.

'Azrael…' she said. Her eyes moved hysterically from him to the passage and remained still. _We were so close, why did this had to happen?_ A cold, hard grasp seized her shoulder and drew her backwards. Her fingers rushed to grab the back of his hand, although finding only the barbed metal. 'Who is that? How did they find us?'

'It's the Dawnguard.' Serana almost didn't recognize his voice. It was again the one she had heard so much time before, before they had arrived to the Castle. A voice devoid of all emotion, deep and vibrating and yet distant. 'They…' That tone cracked, shattered in a thousand pieces. It was even deeper now, and not empty. And was full with tenebrous and sweltering notes, through and through. 'They tracked us down, but how… I don't know.'

She batted her eyelids. _Stay calm,_ she told herself. _It's still all fine._ No one had appeared yet, in spite of the sounds. There was still some time. 'Falkreath,' she said. 'We stopped a few hours ago, maybe they had a spy or… an agent there.'

'Probable,' he said. His voice was different still. Now it was the normal tone he had when he was thinking intensely, when his mind was using all of its resources. It was cold and detached, the words uttered slowly and with focus. 'However, how did they manage to reach us? Were they right there in the city, ready to pick up our trail? Someone set us up, Serana.'

 _It can't be_. Who might have done that? _No, no I refuse to believe it._ That had to be a coincidence. They had been careful, they had covered their tracks in whatever way they could and had avoided any large settlements on purpose. _We have been seen yesterday late at night, but six short hours have passed at most._ It was a coincidence. It had to be. A very unlucky one. They were camping nearby and an informer who saw the two of them at the city warned them; they had managed to follow their trail and they had arrived in that place. _I didn't sense them at any point. They were following us, ready for an ambush._

The clutch on her shoulder strengthened and she felt Azrael pulling her in. She spun around, but shifting her eyes from the entrance to the glade wasn't effortless. _I'm tense._ As she turned, Azrael grasped her other shoulder. When she moved her head at last, she found him looking at her intensely in the eyes. 'Listen to me,' he said, 'do you think you can hold them off until I finish reading the Scrolls?'

She nodded, bringing her hand away from the back of his hand. 'Of course I can. I'll keep them away from the center of the room. The pathway is small, I can manage.'

'Are you sure? They are a lot.'

 _No, I'm not sure._ She wasn't at all. If fact, she thought she couldn't have. She easily saw herself die trying. The footsteps were getting closer, and they were at least twenty pairs. That was at least two dozen men. _But I must, what other alternative is there?_ She had taken on that task, she had accepted to come with him and now she was willing to risk everything for it. It was natural. 'Yes,' she said. 'I am sure. I will hold them off.'

Azrael scoffed, and she couldn't tell what filled that sneer. 'I'm not the only one who's insane here.' He glanced up at the way out of the passage in the rocks. Serana didn't turn to look. He still held her shoulders. 'Listen,' he said, 'When they arrive here, I'll handle them. When I tell you so, or if at any point they threaten to attack me, you distract them.'

'But, Azrael, reading the Scrolls…' They were both risking a lot, the perception was catching up to the thought, but she felt that what he meant to do was even more dangerous. 'It could leave you unable to defend yourself for quite a while. If they get to you…'

'Don't worry about me. Even if they reach me, leave me. I'll manage. Focus on saving yourself before everything.'

'You cannot seriously ask me to—'

He shook both of her shoulders briefly but firmly. 'Focus on saving yourself.'

She moved her hands forward and she reached up for his face. She found it immediately, even though it was completely hidden. She cupped his chin with her hands, looking in the faint igneous shine of his eyes. 'If you're in danger,' she said, 'I won't leave you there to die. I can't. If anything should happen, you can continue this journey alone, whereas I can't.' She wasn't aware of what kind of expression might have been on her face right then, but she knew what her eyes were saying.

Azrael turned his head sharply around, letting go of her shoulders and forcing her to withdraw her own hands. Serana retracted her arms, unsure of what to do for a moment. _This is the most conflicted I've ever seen him,_ she thought. He kept his gaze down to the left, a very clear sign of the worry he felt. _But he never becomes anything he feels. I sometimes act as if I am my fear, whereas he just feels it. And he's not really anxious either, he just doesn't know what to do._ Feelings were just variables. Serana knew all too well that it would have been better to leave him to his own devices should anything happen, but she simply could not. Now that she was blood-starved, even less so. In the frenzy of the fight, she couldn't have resisted the impulse. _And more importantly, I do not want to leave him be._

'Fine,' he said slowly and grimly. 'If your conscience gets in the way, do what you want to. But as much as possible, take care of yourself.' His fingers were still bent inwards, as if still gripping something. Serana saw his eyes wandering over the entrance. 'We'd best get started. They're here.'

She turned. The scent had become much stronger, and the men's fear had grown as well. The deeper they had ventured into the cave, the stronger it had become. She saw only the trees at first, but then the figures walking in between the shrubs became quite clear. Her eyes adapted to the slight change of light, now that Azrael and all his shine was out of the way of her sight. She recognized the colors they wore and the shape of her weapons immediately. They were the same warriors that they had fought in the Holdout. Those were fourteen and they had risked their lives. This once there were at least twenty. She was tense, yes. But she was also thrilled. _So much blood._ The core of her vampiric instincts was awakening, beating stronger than a mortal's heart.

'Serana, the Scroll.'

She shook her head and batted her eyelids. She quickly tightened her lips, not liking the malicious grin that had twisted them. 'Oh, yes,' she said, reaching for the part of the roll that stuck out from her back. She grabbed it and brought it in front of her, turning around and giving it to Azrael. He had already untied the two he kept himself. The moths that surrounded him were at least fifty or more now. _If my mother knew of these, she would probably take a stock of their wings._ She looked sideways at Azrael for a moment, thinking that he had probably already done that. She shook her head again. The Scroll wasn't in her hand anymore, and those sparse thoughts were attempts to flee from her fear.

She felt a rather large tear opening between Aetherius and their plane even before she could spot the translucid purple polygon that was shimmering in Azrael's palm. 'You go and hide,' he said. He spun his hand around, facing the ceiling with the palm, and then opening it in Serana's direction. Magicka bled through the tear before that was closed shut, and Serana felt a strange tickle all across her body. She raised a hand in front of her face, and it was invisible.

She would have liked to thank him, but her unfamiliarity with conventional forms of invisibility spells made her choose to avoid it. She did know that a hit too strong or contact too prolonged with anything other than the ground could break the incantation in its entirety, but she didn't know anything more. When one is invisible, there isn't the need to talk a lot and so that might have been one of the conditions that weakened or broke the spell. She didn't want to risk it. _I do not have much time._ Most of those charms didn't last for a long time, especially complex ones like that.

She turned around, looking for a good place to reach and to hide. _The path that leads down ends in a set of dilapidated stairs,_ she remembered, and she quickly found the place. She looked around it, but there was a steep slope on one side and the other corresponded with the stone wall of the cave. _If I attack them from behind…_ There was a spot, an elevation on the side of the glade that could have allowed her to pick off enemies that came down the stairs. The line of fire seemed particularly comfortable even to shield Azrael with a barrage of spells, if needed. _That's fine, then._ There was a strange energy running through her body that somehow extended to her mind. She felt awake and focused. _And that's just fine for the situation._

She treaded towards the selected place, putting her feet softly on the ground. _I need to avoid the water at all costs._ That wouldn't have broken the spell, but the ripples could have easily given away her position. _Besides, those vampire hunters would be ready for a fight with invisible foes._ Azrael had been prudent in using a spell, thus making sure that she could have access to her vampiric powers later, but it wasn't strictly necessary either. She could have turned invisible by herself without too much effort. She stepped to the side of a puddle of thermal water and moved on, seeing the path clearly in her head.

She mentally rehearsed all the spells she might have needed to use. _There will be no space for hesitation,_ she thought, _I will have to unleash the full arsenal and quickly._ She pondered her options, with the backdrop of a loathing thought telling her that those things were better left to the Dunmer in the middle of the glade. Strategy seemed to come naturally to him. _If I… No, it would be best to raise a corpse. I cannot really count on it causing too much disarray because they seem to know what they're up against._ However, raising a corpse first entailed killing on of them. _I need to pick off someone close to me in order to revive him._ What Azrael seemed to be able to do was seeing all the options in front of him like a map, whereas she could only keep in mind one at a time.

There were also other spells she knew how to use, besides the one she was thinking about, but she cast them away and barred them behind the conviction that she would have used those if the situation turned incredibly ugly. Having just talked about Angaron, she could almost see all the grisly powers he used when fighting. And she wasn't a half-breed like Azrael or Angaron. She was a Daughter of Coldharbour. The might she could summon at will, even while not in her transformed state, could be immense. She had always noticed how the powers of the Vampire Lord sort of bled through to her. But she had never used any of them. No moment in her life had ever called for it. _But it might be now. Doing something bad for the right reason?_ It was as poetic as it was frightening.

'Hey, you…' The voice came from above her, from the last turn of the stairway before the small section that reached the bottom of the glade. She looked up, and saw the man that had spoken. He wore an helmet, but she could see the dark skin of a Redguard in the opening and a long beard coming down. 'Dragonborn, what are you doing? Stop!' The voice was deep and gruff, but Serana didn't pay attention to it.

She turned towards the center of the glade. Azrael was there, standing near the stone that held the draw knife, with one of the Scrolls in his hand and the others under tightly held under his armpit. _He's shaking._ He was holding open the roll and staring at it as if incapable of bringing his eyes away from it, and he was quaking visibly. His hands especially. It seemed to be taking an enormous effort just to keep the thing in his hands.

'Dragonborn, stop this!'

Azrael let the Scroll fall down, but he readily grabbed the second one and opened it. _If I didn't know him better, it would seem he has a death-wish._ He was quaking still, but not stronger, and he was able to hold the Scroll open. She couldn't tell what he was seeing, if good or bad things, if images or words, but there had to be something. She also couldn't tell what had gone by in his head. She thought they would have repelled the enemies and then read the Scrolls. But no, somewhere in his calculation he had seen a better chance of surviving doing that rather than what seemed to obvious thing.

The footsteps became hurried and heavy above her. She saw the group of warriors hastening towards the bottom of the glade, not running but proceeding at quicker marching speed that kept them all organized in three columns. Aside from the man at the front, who carried a hammer, the fighters in the first section of the group were the ones with the crossbows. _They would fire, and then the melee fighters would come around from the back and halt any enemy that comes close._ Whatever they were expecting to find, they had planned it quite well.

She turned once again towards the middle of the glade. There was a cold grip on her stomach while she saw Azrael like that. The second Scroll had fallen on the ground, and he held the third one in his hands. The swarm of moths was frantically flying all around him, and the glow that permeated his frame was becoming more vivid with every passing moment. His hands, vertically aligned to keep the roll straight in front of his eyes, were slowly beginning to return to their respective sides.

'First line, release!'

Three sharp snaps came from where the man's voice was. They were almost at the bottom of the stairs. Serana just about managed to remain still. _There's nothing I can do. Stay here._ She tracked the flight of the bolts in the air, feeling her throat closing. Everything went by so slowly that she thought the flight of those projectiles would never end. They reached Azrael at the same time, but she saw with some relief that none of them could have proved lethal. Two struck his cuirass and bounced off, snapping in two. The third, interestingly enough, hit the Elder Scroll and recoiled without damaging the object.

Azrael staggered backwards, letting go of the Scroll. The roll fell on the ground with a thud, and he collapsed to the ground soon afterwards. His head fell to the left, reclined on his shoulder. He was still quaking.

'Isran,' muttered one of the fighters. Serana knew the tone. Surprised, but mixed with fear and hatred. 'He's not breathing. He's trembling but he's not breathing.'

The man who stood in the front, the one named Isran, remained silent for a moment. Serana could catch glimpses of him through the foliage, and he was stiff as a tree's stem. His shoulders were raised and rigid, and his was utterly motionless. The fighters behind and beside him were dead silent, but hey conveyed the same feeling as the man's tone. Fear and surprise. _They didn't expect him to be a vampire,_ she thought. He had managed to hide it from them for all that time. _And they're the only one that know, I would guess._ Azrael directed the underworld, but he was a known character. The people couldn't know he was fighting on the opposite side, even if to a point.

Serana looked down and she saw her knee, pointed against the ground. She was visible again. The spell's effect had run out. Her hiding place in the shrub was good enough for now, but everyone would have been able to pinpoint where the barrage of spells came from, if she was to fight. She either committed everything or kept hidden. _But that's up to you,_ she thought while looking at the line of combatants that was waiting at the foot of the stairs. _You lay a finger on him and you're dead._

Azrael was still down on the ground with his back leaning against the stone. He was still quaking through and through, although his hand seemed to be moving intentionally towards the side of his leg. _He's probably trying to pick himself up,_ she guessed, but whatever he was trying to do it was clear that reading the Scrolls had disrupted him. His head was still reclined on his left shoulders, and it was moving up and down in irregular spasms.

Serana saw the man leading the Dawnguard members stepping down into the glade. He wore a heavy suit of armor and carried a warhammer on his back. 'Apprehend him,' he cried. He turned sharply towards the fighters behind him. 'Apprehend him, quick! Before he comes to his senses.'

 _Not today._ The rift in Aetherius opened, and almost wider than when Azrael had turned her invisible. The magicka seeped through the tear, reaching her arms and being channeled into her hands. On her palms, it froze and produced repeated cracking sounds, like a glacier that melts under the midday sun. She looked at the man, and she had a clear view. There was a straight line without any trees in between, and she brought her hands closer to that point. She joined them together, and the cracking increased even further. Now, a cold wind seemed to be escaping her grasp.

With a hissing sound, the frost spear left her hands. Serana didn't wait and immediately readied her new hex in her left hand. Similarly to how the flight of the bolts had seemed never-ending, the projectile seemed to take minutes to reach its target. She saw how it spun in the air and the small shards of ice that it left behind as it dashed toward its target.

The tip of the spike hit the man's side, shattering on impact but penetrating the relatively lighter protection. The cuirass they used was heavily armored both on the front and back, but she had already had a taste of how much less tough it was on the sides. The spear continued its course and embedded in the man's flesh deeply. Almost half of its length. When she saw it, she fired the surge of necromantic energies she kept in her left, opening the palm and releasing it towards the body.

Isran fell on its knees. _Yeah, you're probably got a shattered lower ribcage, munched intestines and a bleeding liver._ His hands collapsed to his sides, just moments before the orb of energy struck him. _He was strong, but that hex will be enough to revive him. He will be a useful ally._ The surge struck him, shattering on his skin and sending pale flows all around his body. However, the blue light faded and the white hues dispersed in the air after a moment. _What?_ She looked at Isran's body hitting the ground, and despite its appearance she knew one thing. _He's still alive._

'There! In the shrub!'

A cacophony of noises broke out after that sentence. 'Protect Isran!' someone cried. There was the sound of more footsteps, of people running, of people drawing weapons from their belts. Serana was too shaken by that miscalculation to remain lucid, and while she was still trying to understand how he could have survived her spell, her instincts took hold. A powerful surge of energy rushed through all of her body, and the world began to shimmer. A blood red light died it. _Bleed before me, mortals._

Another spell was ready. There were many enemies, she couldn't afford to pick off one at the time. The tear in Aetherius widened as she summoned more magicka. The ice cracked again in her hands, and the seed of a blizzard left her hands. The ice storm flew upwards, towards the staircase, where all the men were aligned. She looked away, knowing that two or three fools would have paid for their arrogance. She moved her arm away just in time to avoid a crossbow bolt coming her way. She dodged it, and she heard it stick in the humid terrain near her foot. The sounds of agonizing screams came from the stairs. Another bolt came, and she dodged it too. This one flew onward, and she heard it shattering a few feet behind her.

'Protect Isran!' cried a voice, the same one as before. 'Get the Dragonborn and let's get out of here!'

A new spell was ready. The time violet sparks were crackling in her hands, sometimes escaping her control and zapping the air. She brought her hands forward and opened her palms wide in two different directions. There was a grin on her lips. The purple lightning flew out of her skin and against the men on the rim of the stairs who were aiming at her with the crossbows. She heard the screams, glancing in between to see. The man hit by the one she had launched with her right had been struck in the throat, and a crevice of burnt flesh sizzled where his collarbone had been. The one on the other side had his abdomen pierced and scorched. She didn't clearly see the ones hit by the lightning bouncing, but she had heard their screams. _And I enjoyed it._

She turned abruptly to the opposite side, where the twelve or so men armed with melee weapons were running. _They're going to get Azrael,_ she thought. They were all going in that direction. She charged up one more bolt of lightning and released it. One of the fighters, however, jumped in front of it and raised a shield that bore the emblem of a dawning sun on it. The lightning bolt struck the protection and shattered. The combatant, a woman, screamed in a way that she found delicious to hear. She dropped the shield and Serana saw that her whole forearm had been burnt to a crisp, the flesh torn away from the bone. However, none of the spell's power had done anything to her allies.

Serana dodged another bolt. There were still three shooters on the high ground. One was busy putting the bolt in position, one had just fired a shot and another one was ready to release. She looked out for the last one, who had a different expression on his face. There was a sign of clever satisfaction in his features. Serana grinned and bared her teeth, hearing the snap of the string springing and the bolt flying her way. _That clever expression. We'll see how clever you are, weakling._ She moved sideways, and the bolt would have missed her by a few inches. She readied another spell as the bold touched the ground. This one, however, made a different sound as it landed.

A gust of heat came from where she thought it would impact. The temperature rose and before she could realize what had happened red-hot flames were coiling around her. She turned, seeing the bush around her catching fire and the blazes consuming the small branches. The leather of her armor was heating up as well, and the spot where the bold had landed was covered in grease. A fire was rising from that spot. _It burns…_ She shuddered. She jumped to the side, but the fire had already touched her. The pain crept up her body, and she agitated violently in the attempt to put it out.

'Take that, blood-sucker!'

She kept a hand on her side. That was where the flames had touched her first, and where the burn was most painful. She turned around, looking in the voice's direction. It was the man with the clever grin. It had been him to shoot that fiery bolt. She raised her hand, ice cracking in it. A shadow crossed the area beside her that she only saw with the corner of her eye, a fleeting and swift object. She didn't think anything of it, but when it reached her she couldn't help but recoil backwards. She threw the ice spike from her hand, and then looked downward. The fletching of a crossbow bolt stuck out of her ribcage, just under her left breast.

She raised her head and her gaze accordingly, determined on looking the man in the eye before he died a horrific death. _You're going to bleed._ However, a scream came from the left. It was easy enough to pinpoint. It was where Azrael had been, but the scream wasn't his. The Dawnguard warriors had gone there to capture him, and now they had started dying. The crossbowman that had just shot her turned around as well, his eyes expanding to their maximum width at the sound of that shriek. Serana ignored him and turned as well. _Your end will come soon enough._

At her left, a completely new fight had broken out. The scream she had heard belonged to a man that was now dead, lying on the ground with his arms limp and thrown backwards. There was a gaping gash on his throat, a blow struck with precision but by an unsteady hand, judging by the irregular edges. It wasn't the only one. As she turned, she heard another one. A woman's, this time. She was stumbling backwards in the arms of a comrade had happened to be behind her, and the armor under the armpit was torn and bled profusely. The scent of fresh blood filled the air.

Azrael stood in the middle of a circle of eight Dawnguard fighters, all with their weapons drawn and their eyes fixed on him. Two more of them were carrying Isran's body away from the fighting, and one more was shouldering the woman with the seared arm. The Dragonborn's tall frame was hunched over, and Serana could see him still trembling. The wounds that he had inflicted, although lethal, showed the signs of his fatigue. He was surrounded on all sides. The longsword was trembling. _He's weak…_ she thought. _He can't defeat them._

She spun around and bolted, still keeping her hand on her side. _It burns…_ She noticed herself stumbling as she ran forward, and although she didn't feel any pain where the bolt had struck her ribs she could sense that she had difficulties moving that side of her body. _Keep fighting._ On the one hand, there was a stern determination that came from a place in her mind that felt distant from where she was now. All she could clearly feel was the thirst. _Fresh blood, all around._ The edges of her field of vision were shimmering red, and the unholy energy still rushed through her body. _The feast. The feast that there will be._

She heard another whistle. _A bolt from behind._ She heard it coming from behind her on the right, where she had seen the crossbowman the last time. She dashed in that same direction, seeing the bolt flying past. However, another whistle came and this one was approaching faster. She looked behind, but she didn't see it, and only after a moment did she understand that it was coming from in front of her. She caught a glimpse of it flying over, going straight towards her. _It's going to hit me square in the chest._ She dodged as fast as she could, raising her eyes and seeing one of the warriors with her arbalest raised.

As she heard the bolt reaching her, she also felt a strong shove to her left shoulder. In between the noise, the sound of something shattering inside her shoulder was the clearest one. The bold snapped in two and part of the shaft flew behind her, but the tip had wedged itself quite well in her flesh. Again, no pain, but when she tried to move the arm on that same side she was unable to do so. Despite feeling as if everything should have been fine, her arm didn't move. She could barely move her fingers, in fact. She tried to channel magicka into it, but it was equally difficult. The ethereal energy seemed to bleed out of the broken physical junctions. Her eyes rose on the woman that had shot her. _You'll pay for that._

She was alone, and she alone had to pay immediately. The spell was simple. It took her less than a second, even while dashing through the glade, to prepare it in her palm. Her feet glided on the terrain, splashing in the warm water and jumping on the obstacles that she found in her way. She was close, very close. The sparks gathered into her right palm, and only had to bring it forward. The thunderbolt erupted from her fingers in a lilac storm of light. The lightning touched the woman's armor and melted it, digging a searing hollow in her chest.

'Behind us, look out!' screamed a man. He was a big one, tall and with broad shoulders. He wore the same suit of armor as their leader and carried a similar warhammer. Serana saw him turn after she had fired the lightning bolt, so he must have been distracted by the sound. _But you shouldn't have turned,_ Serana thought, almost lucidly, feeling something that resembled a cruel mixture of scorn and compassion for the man. She kept running, grinding her teeth from the pain, waiting for what she knew to be inevitable.

Soon enough, a black shadow swept down at the height of his knees, severing both calves from the rest of the body. Serana looked past the man, collapsing to the ground and screaming so loudly that his allies either froze on the spot or backed away from Azrael. Even Serana felt the momentary instinct to put her hands over her ears, because the sound was ear-splitting.

There were only six men left that could still fight as far as she could see. They were all unsure what to do, it seemed. She launched on the nearest one. _Bleed._ She tried to raise both hands, but only the right one did. The left remained limp and dangling by her side, moving irregularly. She aimed for a lightly armored fighter, a young man didn't even raise the axe he was holding in his hands when he saw her dashing towards him with her teeth bared. The cuirasses of the Dawnguard were designed to prevent vampires from biting the wearer, that much she remembered. They were reinforced around the neck area in a way that not even the canine teeth of a pureblood could bite through. However, they were open helmets. Serana aimed for the lower part of the chin.

Her teeth sank in the flesh. They hit the skull as well, it was inevitable, but they penetrated deep enough. With her right hand, she grabbed the man's face strongly and kept it in place; primarily, she had to prevent him from screaming. He would have moved his jaw and might have accidentally freed himself from her bite. _You'll stay right here._ She pressed hard, and then tightened the muscles of her jaw and throat. The first gush of blood flooded her mouth. The warm life lymph of the man quickly rushed down her throat and into her body. It spread across the limbs, the shoulders and in the abdomen. The senses grew sharper. She could feel every single inch of leather touching her skin, the red lines streaking her eyesight and every little, muffled sound there was in the glade. Above all, she sensed the craved scent and taste of lifeblood. The warmth crept to her chest faster than she could realize, and the first heartbeat pounded like a drum. She could now feel a sharp pain where the two bolts had struck her, but she didn't mind. _I'm alive._

She drank and drank, swallowed gush after gush, until there didn't seem to be anything more. When she looked at the man's skin, it was sallow and unnaturally pale. He had also stopped moving, but he was still breathing. He had only fainted, but he would have died soon enough. Serana released the grip on his face, eyeing her fingertips and seeing that there was blood on them.

Something took hold of her from behind. Two large hands, a man's. _You'll end up the same way._ She struck behind her with her elbow, finding a surface that seemed to be a Dawnguard's cuirass. _There you are._ However, she also saw something glimmering in front of her. It was an axe, but the blade was directed towards her. Something else was. A small, sharp, triangular blade that was on the dull side of the shaft. _No…_ she thought, moving frantically. Something cold gripped her stomach. _Get off me._ The small blade neared and then touched her throat.

'Die, fiend,' muttered a man's voice from behind her as the small blade traced a line across her throat.

Her eyes looked forward. She felt unable to move. She felt the pain, but that wasn't what was keeping her still. She didn't know exactly what it was. It was something primal, just like the fighting instincts were. As she looked, her gaze fell on the dark frame kneeling in front of her. _Azrael._ He was down, with his head bent forward and looking down at the ground. _His weapons…_ The longsword lay just out of his reach, much closer to her than to him. The dagger had been taken out of its sheath and had been thrown to the side. The bow was shattered in two, on the upper limb. _The longsword._ It was close to her. There were two dead near him. _There are three behind me. Let go of me. As soon as you do, you're dead._

It was an easy guess. The hands let her go, and she fell. Unlike the flight of the bolts, the fall didn't last very long. She hit the ground swiftly, falling on her knees and hands. There was something thick in her throat, and she coughed. _Those are…_ she thought, not quite understanding where the drops of blood on the ground were dripping from. She remembered immediately when the pain stabber at her throat. _A vampire doesn't die from a cut to the throat,_ Azrael had once said. _Focus and kill them._ She leaned on her left forearm, which still didn't answer her commands to move, and extended her right hand as far as she could.

'No, no, no!' a voice cried from behind. Serana's fingers closed on the longsword's grip, and then she reclined backwards, dragging the blade with her. 'Strike her, damn it!' She sensed the same hand as before grabbing her on the side, as if trying to turn her supine. _Yes, do that,_ she thought. She waited for the moment when her enemy initiated the movement, and when he did she spun in that same direction as strongly as she possibly could. She also dragged her right arm with her, and the longsword with it.

As she turned with her face towards the ceiling, she swung the blade in a wide arch. She felt resistance at one point, but it quickly disappeared. A few drops of warm blood fell on the piece of her chest that the armor left exposed. On top of her, there was the same man that had grabbed her. There was a deep, bleeding cut on his right groin, where the armor was lighter. His eyelids were batting frantically. Serana looked at the way he was bending. _He will fall on his back, luckily._

There were still two of them. One of them was raising her axe and readying to drop it down on her. She brought the blade back to her right side, aimed the hit and extended her arm, going for a piercing strike. Maybe the one who was attempting to finish her off, a woman, wasn't trained perfectly or perhaps her speed was just superior, but she finished her attack before her adversary could react. The tip of the longsword fit in between the junction of the trousers and the cuirass and speared its way to the opposite side. Serana sensed heavy resistance, which could have only come from the armor on her back.

 _What's… What's happening…_ She was feeling strange. Her arm was lowering back to the ground, and she didn't have the strength to keep it raised. The world shimmered again, but this time with black hues rather than red. She heard the longsword clanging on her ground, falling down. Just the blade. She wasn't holding the grip, but that was still near her hand and it was already lying on the ground. _The last one…_ She thought. There was a small tear in Aetherius opening. She could still feel the blood dripping from her throat.

The world faded gradually. She felt the pain in the shoulder and then under her breast. The outlines dissolved and all her senses ceased working. A dark shadow floated past her eyes as they did. Only her hearing seemed to linger a while longer.

'Who told you we were here?' The sound of that voice was deep, and it vibrated slightly.

'G. It's how he signed the letters.'

A cracking sound, and the silence.


	26. Chapter XXV: Alone Against the World

Chapter XV: _You and Me, Against the World_

* * *

Upon hearing the sound of the ice crackling, she opened her eyes. Winking twice because of the bight light that shone around, she turned ever so slightly to the left, enough to catch the shadow that was approaching the place where she sat. _You can be almost imperceptible to the ear when you're on normal ground, but not when walking on such thin ice,_ she thought with a grin. She recognized the pace of those steps. It was very familiar to her, to the point that she couldn't tell if its distinctiveness was real or just imagined.

'Did you find it?' she asked upon seeing him entering the small hollow.

'I did,' Azrael replied. 'There is a long ravine that runs along the whole path to the upper sanctuary.'

She moved her head, trying to ease the stinging pain that still marked the line of the cut with perfection. Every inch of that incision on the throat could be clearly felt, and almost constantly. Even while trying to rest, it remained no matter what. Right there and then, however, she was a bit distracted. 'It sounds like you didn't expect to find it,' she told him.

'I didn't think I'd find it this quickly.' Azrael had walked over to the other side of the hollow in the ice. He was raising the cloak with his hands to prevent it from touching the thawing ice. 'That's all.'

'You underestimate yourself sometimes.'

Azrael's head turned ever so slightly to his left, in her direction. 'I really don't.'

Serana smiled. Paying attention to every motion, she reclined her head backwards and against the ice wall. When she stopped, all the attention she had put in the movements flowed on to her gaze, and she looked once again at the strange place they were in. _Actually, we're in a strange place inside another strange place_. All she could see from there was the hollow in the glacier where Azrael had brought her, but when she had peered outside she had seen that it was only one part of that frozen place. _The Forgotten Vale,_ that was the name he kept using to refer to that valley. _I wonder if that Elf gave it this name. Speaking of which…_

Lowering her head, she looked at him for a moment before asking. However, she saw him nodding silently. 'I know,' he said, 'you want to hear how It went down with the Snow Elf.'

She stopped in her tracks and closed her mouth, even if she had managed to barely move it. A grin twisted her lips, and she slowly moved backwards against the wall of ice. An interesting thing she noticed was her lack of a reaction, both a mental and material one. _Other people, including myself not so long ago, would have made a witty remark asking themselves why did they even bother to ask._ But such a thing had not arisen in any form. Instead, she just felt a bit of tenderness, which was perfectly appropriate in spite of it being strange.

Actually, she had never noticed that Azrael became slightly amused when he witnessed her traits working in situations so small that they didn't require an approach based on personal values. He had told her, because she would have never guessed it. For instance, he said that he particularly enjoyed the moments when she was left to her own devices with a stranger. The perfect example had been in Falkreath just a few days before. When she made use of her ability to captivate someone in a context when it wasn't really required, he had a bit of fun for himself. In a perfect parallel, she had a bit of fun when he applied the very abilities that had led the two of them that far for something as simple as guessing what she was about to say.

'His name is Gelebor,' Azrael said. He grazed two of his armored fingertips together, shattering a small shard of ice that he kept in between them. 'As I told you, he has walked this plane for longer than any other creature I know of. You would probably say that he's a bit of a fanatic, but I have come to the conclusion that he would have gone completely mad if not for the extremely rigid structure of his beliefs. He has offered to help me look for the bow, in exchange for a favor.'

Azrael knew how she thought and had given her all the information she might have wanted to make a judgment. A rigid mind was something, but a person that had helped them in spite of them being complete strangers was something else. The two of them together pointed to a man with a strong conscience, a strong sense of purpose and a righteous attitude. She scoffed lightly. 'Everyone needs something done and will deal with the enemy of his enemy to get it.'

'Indeed.' Azrael didn't talk for a moment, as if thinking. It was strange, he usually explored all possible branches of a reasoning before getting to it. 'Actually, I doubt I would have been able to convince him were I exposed as a vampire, but there was something about me that made him ignore caution. More precisely, something about you.' Serana saw his index finger rising and lingering for a while in her direction. 'He kept glancing at you in a strange way before coming back to me. I think he was struggling to make up his mind.'

Serana was at a loss. Actually, she had never asked him how the journey had gone. After the wounds received at the Glade, she had lost all consciousness. Azrael had prolonged her slumbering state with potions, and she had woken up a few hours before that conversation. _He carried me all the way here by himself._ Something about that must have changed that Snow Elf's mind. 'What did you mean? Where was I, even?'

Azrael waved his fingers. He was making a lot of those little movements, but she couldn't understand why that was the case. 'When we entered the cave I was carrying you. When Gelebor found me I drew the sword, but I didn't drop you. I didn't trust anything in that cave. I held on to you with my left while wielding the blade with my sword arm. That was the moment that stuck in his mind, and that suspicious account for my nearly perfect memory of it.'

 _The situations is quite clear to me_ , Serana thought. She had always observed with interest how Azrael played around with mortal emotions. His mastery suggested a deeper understanding than what might have looked like at first. And still, he didn't seem able to fully to understand how touching the scene he was describing was. _That Elf, who has lived in a cavern for centuries unending, apparently guarding a few temples… He hadn't seen anything humane in a long time._ And the first sight presented to him was of a fighter who, even in the face of danger, refused to drop the woman he was holding in his arms. She looked at him again, uncertain. _He knows what effect it sorted and he probable used it to his own advantage, but he doesn't get it on a deeper level._

'Why are you so surprised?' she asked. 'Do you find it so strange that someone like him might have a soft spot for signs of affection? Or did you consider yourself weak as you did it, and it surprises you that he didn't try to use it against you?'

'Are we changing the subject?'

'Yes we are.'

He nodded, but other from that remained motionless. The hit of the sword was grazing the ice behind him and carving out crevices in it. The lack of the bow on his back was noticeable. 'Very well,' he said. 'I suppose I had never given thought to what I had done. Not as in I hadn't touched the subject, but I had never entertained the possibility of leaving you behind. It felt natural to me, carrying you along until you were awake again. Gelebor would have done the same in my place. That's why I don't understand his surprise. I don't feel as if I did anything special.'

'Azrael… When you were in the Glade and I was out, did you consider leaving me there? Would you have had the strength to simply walk away from me?'

There was a more intelligent way to formulate that questions, but she didn't feel the courage to frame it like that. However, she left the possibility opened to him. 'Yes,' he said, almost without hesitation, 'I could have left you there. I made a real choice.' That last word send some sort of chills down her neck and into her limbs. He had understood what she meant.

No matter how much she thought of her easing tension, the more she thought she of her as calm the more she realized that in fact she wasn't calm at all. Right then, something very intricated and hard melted in her chest. A knot she didn't even know she had until it was cut right through as if by a blade. _He chose me, just like he claims that I have chosen him._ When thinking that, she understood the nature of the knot. _That's guilt._ She appreciated and liked, almost to the point of envy, his ability to make the right decision no matter the circumstance. _The last thing I'd want is to get in the way of his clarity. And I didn't._ It was hard living with the idea that her presence hindered him, and it didn't seem to.

The game of what part of her mind could ask the strangest question was on. Wondering on one's choice of companion was a bit of a guilty pleasure in her mind, something that can be indulged only under very specific circumstances. The choice was important now. _And he had one with me. He had to decide. But what if there was someone else? Someone that gave him no choice?_ It didn't have to be a deliberate action on that hypothetical person's part, but it could have happened. _Would he even feel affection for someone like that? Wouldn't it feel more to him like a burden than anything?_ Because if there was one constant in their relationship was that Azrael appreciated her courage, even in the smallest forms. Every time she could show him that she didn't stick around because she needed it but because she wanted, he had answered by reducing the emotional distance.

In her musing, she came to the conclusion that strength isn't the absence of weakness. It is weakness being effectively accounted for. She was afraid of the world around her, undecisive when afraid and constantly in search of support. Though weaknesses, they made for the most relevant of her strengths. Her entire journey from the moment she had woken un in Dimhollow to that very moments were testimony. She had remained at Azrael's back, and effectively fueling him with her energy. How far that would bring them it was yet to see. Azrael himself, on the other hand, was someone who lived far away from the world and that didn't feel at ease when he had to take care of anything other than himself. Because of this, he treated external things by either demanding independence or temporarily seeing them as part of himself. On the other hand, he could also assess every situation from a minimalistic point of view. Those weaknesses were what made him such an effective leader, planner and overall person. He flew above the ground, never touching it and never even trying to find references. He knew that everything changed, and held himself as the only part of it that he could constantly assess. The world might have crumbled about him, but he would have endured.

At that, something clicked. _When I say he has a cold temperament… I am only partly correct. Sometimes it is cold, but sometimes it is just spacious._ He was never surprised by anything, he accepted almost everything and didn't seem to ever judge. He understood others without ay regard for being understood himself, probably because he knew it was close to impossible in the short term. Only looking at him put things in perspective. _Overlord of the Dragons, Dragonborn and first ever person to hold so much power in Skyrim for centuries if not millennia._ Of course everything was put in perspective when talking to him. In comparison to how big the scale of his existence was, everything seemed to pale. It made him inaccessible if one approached it head-on. _But I have taken another route. Deep inside, he is still the curious and pensive Elf that he must have been before all of this happened._ But that belief was hers. _I don't believe people ever change._ But was she right? She didn't know it herself.

'Are we seriously?'

Her eyes focused back on the world and the shimmering image that had lingered in front of her dissolved quickly. She saw the blue-striped white of the glacier's ice all around them, with the light coming from the side and glimmering through the frost. A penetrating cold ran across her whole left leg, which she had tucked underneath her thighs to sit more comfortably. She looked towards Azrael, who was still sitting motionlessly in his corner. _What does he even mean?_ He didn't seem to be about to explain further. 'Seriously what?' she asked.

'In love with each other.'

For a moment, she didn't think she would have been able to move anything of her body, especially her arms and hands, even if she had wanted to. There was something that felt disconnected. _It's good that… Well…_ She stopped, unable even to think of something. _That really just came out of the blue._ 'I guess we are, yes,' she said, sensing how her smile curved in a way that made it look timid. 'Why?'

Azrael made a deep and vibrating sound, that she didn't know how to interpret at first. He stopped, but after a short pause he repeated it. As he repeated it, it became ever increasing in speed until she could clearly understand that it was laughter. A rich laughter, although almost mirthless. His head was moving faintly because of the quick movements that he made with his head as he kept sniggering.

 _I don't understand the exact reason behind it, but I like it._ Serana looked at him lengthily, finding that sight rather strange but also very reassuring. It would have been confusing to anyone that wasn't her probably. He had been asked a question, and his only answer was almost uncontrollable, grim fit of laughter. There were words she could use that they shared, such as the irony of fate. Because although everything felt quite natural to her, the situation they were in was close to absurd if seen from the outside. It really made sense if and only if it had been lived, which they had. _This is the great obstacle of the mind. It lacks imagination. Actually, I bet that he's about to say that…_

She couldn't finish her thought. 'I don't even know what think,' Azrael said. He was still snickering, but the vibrant sound was dying off in the notes of his voice. He was drumming his talon-like fingertips against the ice next to where he sat. 'It's so eerie. Me and my mind, we've always worked together. Now I understand something that it doesn't.' He turned his head around, until the black void under his hood faced her. 'I don't remember this ever happening once in my lifetime.'

 _He'll probably need a little bit of time._ She vividly remembered when, now months before, she had told her father that Azrael's weakness resided in his obsessive clinging to logic. The thought that she would witness the day when he recognized and assessed that part of him had never crossed her mind. Back then, there was only the blood red light of the cathedral shining in through the stained glass. Castle Volkihar was far away now, and they were on their own. _It's you and me, against the whole world._ _We'll manage._

Azrael remained silent even after he had finished, reclining his head backwards and moving his eyes away from her. For a short moment, she wondered what was the best thing to say. Did he need reassurance of comfort? However, after a moment she decided to ignore her first instinct because the best thing to doing nothing forced. She didn't have anything to say and so she didn't. _He'll understand. And besides, he's living proof that silence sometimes speaks stronger than words._ He took the rule of speaking only when he had something to say to the letter. There were times when she told him something and he would just not answer in words.

She moved the leg she had slipped underneath her thighs and sat more comfortably on her own ankle. She didn't like feeling the cold, even through the leather trousers' protection. She looked once again at the rays of sunlight that came through the entrance to the small hollow they were in. _Even the light seem cool._ The azure color it gained from flowing past the ice gave that impression. Around them, the landscape wasn't much different. When Azrael had left her there, she had crawled to the exit and looked around. There was ice everywhere, expect for the large stone walls that surrounded the valley. That place was as stunning as it was also desolate and barren.

'I managed to gather some allies while you were still sleeping.'

Serana turned towards him. _Allies? In this place?_ Actually, he was answering a question she had asked him earlier. She was wondering what they could do against the other Snow Elf that they should have defeated. 'What do you mean? There is no one here apart from us.' All entrances on land were blocked, and the only one that they could use went through that other Elf, Gelebor.

'Do you remember the large wall with the inscription I read to you in Dimhollow?'

'Of course.' She remembered it as if it were yesterday. She even roughly remembered what was written on that wall. In all honesty, that precise moment had been when the questions about Azrael had started clouding her mind.

'Quite inexplicably, there was another one here,' Azrael said. 'I went towards it, hoping that it would reveal something about the history of this place. There was a big ice lake right beside me as I walked there.' He drew a horizontal line with his fingers as he spoke. 'When I began to walk beside it the ice started to break, and then two Dragons emerged from it.'

'What?'

'Two Dragons. I almost couldn't believe it. I had to briefly fight them before we came to an agreement.'

She held still for a moment. _So, the two Dragons were the allies he was talking about._ She would have never guessed it. Maybe he had reached an agreement with the Dragon there is the Soul Cairn, but that was a different thing. _He came to terms with two living Dragons who tried to kill him._ But yet again, he was apparently their leader. 'All right,' she said, conscious that her surprise had probably showed itself, 'and what did they say?'

'That they'll come to my aid if it is needed.' Azrael cast his eyes to the side, out in the frosty expanses of the Vale. 'We should get ready. It will be dark in around two hours.' He turned towards her, his hand fishing for the lace that held the satchel on his bandoliers closed. 'I'll apply the last bit of salve to your wound. It should close by itself afterwards.'

* * *

The wings of the palace were dead silent. Serana felt like she had been walking in those corridors for hours unending, whereas a little more than a one might had gone by. At times, an occasional squeaking reached their ears, but it rarely was anything more than a crumbling piece of rock encrusted in ice that fell down as the ice melted under the sun. The walls, the floor and the ceiling were all encrusted with a thick layer of ice, and its quantity was clearly unnatural, even for a place like that.

The most disturbing thing of all were the frozen Falmers that stood all around the place. _They look as if they were alive moment ago, but it couldn't be._ They might have actually been there for centuries, or even millennia. _Or maybe I'm right and they were the ones that Gelebor saw coming in recently._ They were frozen solid, watching the halls with their dead eyes embedded in a deep layer of frost that covered their whole body. _Whoever this Vyrthur is, he must have surely mastered the Destruction branch of magic, and the ice one especially._ In their own way, those ice statues along the corridors were gruesome works of art. _I wonder what kind of madman he is._

Azrael was glancing over everything that was in reach. He seemed to be his usual coldblooded self, but Serana managed to pick up the right cues and saw that he was ravenously interested in everything that surrounded them. She missed a lot of the finest points of architecture that the palace had to offer, in part because she was lost in her own thoughts and partly because she had nothing to compare them to. She had seen how Azrael looked around Castle Volkihar, and she knew that he probably had built up his own knowledge about architecture. He had once managed to explain her a very complex system of balancing the weight of heavy ceilings with columns and pillars. When asked how he knew those things, he had told her that he just figured them out on his own.

She pressed a hand against her throat. The wound was healing all right. Azrael had actually found out that infusing a healing salve with some vampire dust made the healing effect take place in minimal part on undead creatures too. The cut looked bad still, but he insisted that in a short time there would have been nothing but a thin scar in its place. She still felt the piercing cool of the healing lotion on her skin. She pressed harder, with her fingers this time. She felt the small bump, but there was nothing more. They had found no mirrors in the palace, and certainly not out in the glacier, so she still had to look how bad the wound was by herself. She wasn't excited to see it, but certainly curious. _I'm the girl who's throat has been cut and who still lives._ And it wasn't over. Azrael said that Isran, the man carrying him and the woman with the charred arm had escaped.

Azrael seemed to be particularly interested in what a member of the Dawnguard had told him when he had put him under the effect of a calming charm. Serana had so wished the Dawnguard to have stumbled upon them by dumb luck, but apparently it hadn't been so. Upon being asked who had given away the Dragonborn's position, the fighter had said that it had been G. The letters were signed like that. Serana didn't remember that moment, although when Azrael had told her about it a vague cracking sound had played out in her head without her actively trying to recall it. Serana thought that G as an initial that was meaningless and likely made up, whereas Azrael was convinced it was the beginning of the double agent's real name. He had listed a few, including an Orcish name, a few Nord ones and others. Of all of them she knew only one: Garan Marethi. He was on the list.

They had not put much more thought into it. In the Forgotten Vale, they were beyond anyone's reach. Time was largely against them, but that was a decent stalling position. Nobody knew where they went and nobody could have ever known since the Scrolls were still with them. _Technically, they are with Shadowmere and she isn't with us, but they'll never catch her._ As far as the two of them were concerned, there wasn't a thing from the outside world that could bother them. That place was lot like the Soul Cairn in my regards, with the exception that there wasn't anyone out to actually kill them. Even if this Vyrthur had seen them coming, he had yet to make any overt moves against them.

'We're close,' Azrael whispered, looking around the hallway. He cast his eyes first at the ceiling and then at the walls. 'The structure is tightening, and we're reaching the gorge you could see from the entrance.'

'Couldn't it just continue beyond that point?'

'No. The ravine is deep inside the mountain range that form the outer perimeter of the Vale. Unless there is another peak in between, which I doubt, the gorge should overlook Skyrim once again. I doubt there could be a full blown palace right in the mountains and nobody ever realized that.'

'Did you actually manage to keep exact track of where we are even after traversing through the cave?'

'I tried, but I miscalculated. I recognized those peaks, though.' He pointed through two large cracks in the ice-covered ceiling; the two summits were quite generic in her eyes, but they did have some unique features, primarily in the shape of the tor itself. 'Unless there are twin tops with the same frame, then the North face of those mountains faces Skyrim directly and there is no elven palace on them.' He glanced around. 'I think this is it.'

She looked around too, but there wasn't much more than ice. The walls were drawing closer to their position and it had been a while since she had seen a doorway that led to the sides. 'What do you mean?' she asked.

'We're in the gorge.' He turned, and gazed exactly ahead of him to the very end of the hall they were walking through. 'And somebody's waiting for us.'

Serana looked in the same direction. _I don't see anything that might… Oh well._ She had looked through one of the ice spikes that emerged from the ground. Big chunks of frost like that one dotted the enormous space they were now in. There was ice everywhere. The hall was enclosed in the stone walls of the mountains and the ceiling was made of a layer of ice, littered with rocks and boulders that had fallen from the mountains as the winters passed by. The big chunks of frost rising from the floor, however, were not merely pieces of ice. _They're falmers too._ She could see their arms and legs emerging on the more external parts of the ice.

'That's quite a grim welcome,' she chuckled, staring at the frozen elves one by one. Some were blocked as if mid-movement. _And why in the world did he freeze them here?_ 'Actually, a very cold welcome.'

Her laughter died out in the hall, and an unnatural silence fell. Before she could understand that something was wrong, she felt a strong grip in the stomach and her throat clenching. _This is not normal._ She turned towards Azrael, who was looking exactly where he had turned a few seconds before. She saw his hand, halfway towards his shoulder, ready to dart and grab the sword. _What did I miss?_ She looked forward, trying to follow the exact trajectory of his eyes. It led to a white throne at the end of the hall. Someone was sitting on it, but the white skin and the pale armor made him almost indistinguishable from the seat where he lied.

She felt the tension rising. She didn't like that figure, whoever it was, and she had an idea of who he was. She looked around. _Stupid,_ she told herself, _it's obvious._ 'You weren't talking about the falmers, were you?' She cast a glance at Azrael, and then back to the figure.

'Of course I wasn't,' the Dunmer said from beside her. He had slowed down a little bit. His tone had grown colder ever so slightly. _He's thinking,_ she thought.

It was Vyrthur. Arch-curate Vyrthur, if she remembered correctly. Since she was out when Azrael and Gelebor had met, he was the first Snow Elf she saw. _And I'm still the second person to see them in millennia, apparently._ His skin was extremely pale, of an almost unnatural white. He had sharp features and his face was thin and bony, the skin stretched across the cheekbones and the chin. His eyes were half-closed, but the gaze that came from them was shrewd and cruel. _I guess he's very old and he's been alone all this time, but he looks… strange._ There was something off about him.

'Did you really here expecting to claim Auriel's Bow?' The voice echoed in the hall, but it wasn't hard to imagine it was coming from Vyrthur's mouth. The tone was croaky and unpleasant. 'You've done exactly as I predicted and brought you fetching companion to me.'

There was something that shifted quite abruptly by her side. It was Azrael; his right had hand darted to the handle of the sword, and his left had closed into a clenched fist. 'You…' he whispered, and Serana noticed his head protruding towards Vyrthur in spite of his body remaining stationary, in a fighting stance. He then shook his head and looked to the side for a moment. 'Gelebor, you fool.'

Serana looked at him, but there was something else that troubled her. Vyrthur had quite clearly talked to Azrael, so there weren't many choices as to who he referred when talking about his companion. 'Is he talking about me?' she muttered, more thinking aloud than really asking the question.

Azrael didn't seem to hear her even. 'Vyrthur,' he hissed, the deepest notes of his voice vibrating. His voice was filled with a chilling anger. 'You bastard. Do you know what you have done? However big it seemed to you, was all of this worth it?'

Serana looked at the two of them repeatedly. _Why are they talking about something that I can't follow? Was it something that Gelebor said?_ However, the voice of reason told her it was unlikely. Azrael had uttered the words that made it almost impossible. _You fool,_ he had called the other Snow Elf thus. 'Azrael, what is this all about?' She wasn't really looking forward to an answer. Azrael seemed to focused.

'I have watched you for quite some time, Dunmer,' Vyrthur said. There was a hint of mock in his voice. 'You didn't seem to be the person who is crossed easily. Certainly not in the face of such a sign of foresight.'

'True,' Azrael growled in response. 'I normally don't. But I do when it concerns me. And she…' He pointed his index finger towards Serana. His arm was slightly bent, but it was completely rigid. 'She does concern me. She's one of the few things I care about in this world.' His tone was wavering, going in slight ups and downs in pitch. 'You're in for it now, Vyrthur.'

'It doesn't matter.' Vyrthur, who had been resting hid cheek on his closed fist, opened the fist and put his chin in his palm. 'Your usefulness ends here.'

The sound of ice cracking was the first thing that reached her ears. It did as soon as the echo of the Snow Elf's voice began to wane in the air. It came irregularly. It was not one crevice opening, it was many doing so at the same time. _And from different places._ From all around her, the ice was starting to break. The sound was increasing in clarity, but not because of the noise itself. It was her hearing. It was sharpening, catching more and more sounds with every passing fraction of a second. She inhaled deeply, but this once there wasn't any scent of blood coming in. She only smelt a vampire's scent. Azrael's, no doubt.

The borders of her field of view pulsed red. The sense of touch heightened and crept up to her teeth, and she felt her hands tickling. _Here we go._ She pointed her foot to the side, ready to turn. She knew where the cracking came from. It wasn't difficult to imagine. It wasn't loud and deep, so it wasn't something as big as the ceiling. Moreover, what else could cause such a movement all at once? The trapped falmer. Vyrthur had weakened the spell and they were now trying to set themselves free. _And in seeing us, they will attack us._

'It will be an impressive display, I'm sure, but you'll be delaying nothing but your own deaths!'

Serana turned around, but she felt something holding her on her stomach. It was Azrael's hand, she recognized it by the black barbed frame before he could look at it better. 'Stay back,' he said. She felt something wild struggling inside. She didn't like the sound of those words, but she remained calm. 'Strike them from a distance and cover me.'

 _That's better._ The breach in Aetherius was already open, the magicka was flowing through her arms and flooding her hands. It was somewhat warm, pleasant to the touch. As she cast her eyes in front of her, she saw all the falmers waking from their ice tombs. They were alive, they were breaking out of their prisons and ridding themselves of the shards of frost still attached to their limbs. They were a lot, and there weren't only falmers in there. There were chauruses as well. _They're a lot._ A grin stretched across her lips. The scene was quite incredible.

–––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––– A Ω ––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––

 _To think that she's probably looking at the scene and thinking how unique it is._ The thought flowed past his consciousness briefly, without being taken and properly evaluated. _I see numbers, possibilities and strategies._ There were seventeen enemies freeing themselves from the chunks of ice that had entrapped them. Eight had already pinpointed them, and only four were charging in their direction. One chaurus and three falmers. _They're unarmed._ They were either at a point in their madness where they attacked with their fists and talon, or they had been frozen without any weapons. _Their survival instincts are tested now. Much depends on whether they were conscious or not during their imprisonment._

He followed that trail. _The temperature of magic ice is lower than the one that naturally forms in nature._ That was the reason it emitted frigid steam when it was summoned into a mage's hands. _Any of the human races wouldn't stand it and would freeze to death, but Snow Elves…_ He didn't have any reference as to their capabilities of withstanding the cold. However, there was a simpler route. _They look confused right now, but they are quite active. However, they started agitating before being released._ He didn't know the truth, but he knew which of the two solutions was the most likely, and that was enough.

Azrael came down to the hard reality, finding his fingers already coiled around the grip of the longsword. He pulled upwards, weakening the strength of the grip to allow the blade to come out without impairments. He strengthened it again when he felt it was already free. He cast his eyes at the four enemies which were coming, seeing that they would soon become five. _Serana will hit the ones who come first._ It was unlikely she could distinguish between those who were more dangerous and the minor threats, so she would have tried to cut down everything that got close. _That gives me some breathing room._ Two possible courses of actions presented themselves given the circumstances. _But that one…_ There was one falmer who he didn't like very much. He had a series of scars and his claws were strangely long. _That one first._

He put the weight on his forward foot, and waited a slight fraction of a second longer before he leapt. He had done it ever since he had learned to control his vampiric strength. _It's counter-intuitive._ The only way to control those energies was letting go of any control. They seemed to be endless, so the more resistance they were put against the more fiercely they fought for control. However, by letting go of control they emerged only when needed. _And now they are._ A powerful surge of energy rushed all the way down to his knee and then to his leg, filling it with a tremendous amount of energy. He leapt.

The magicka flowed in his sword-arm weakly, because not a lot of it was needed. It coursed through the forearm and seeped into the handle of the longsword. He rotated the wrist, drawing a straight line from his upper right to the lower left. He was watching the falmer in front of him, but he caught the edge of the blade early with the corner of his eye, and saw it changing color, become red. He focused on the falmer. The creature had not yet had time to react, and had only slowed its run and raised his blinded eyes towards the threat. _He probably heard me._

The blade cut diagonally, going down. It struck the falmer's skin on the shoulder, and as it did it burst with red-hot flames. His enhanced hearing caught two sounds separately. The surprised screech of the creature and the sizzling of the fire blazing and dying off as the small stream of energy dispersed. The light of the flames filled his eyes turning everything white for a short moment; but afterwards, he didn't see anything in front of him. _Obviously, the corpse is on the ground._ He glanced down. There was a falmer's corpse on the ground, with a long cut with scorched edges. _Dead._ He looked elsewhere.

 _Five again._ One was dead by his side, but another one had understood what was going on and was running in their direction. He swept his gaze across the room. More of them were freeing themselves from the ice chunks. He heard a hiss. _This is…_ Before he could finish, a burst of bright light appeared on the right side of his field of vision, accompanied by a zapping sound. _That's a good shot._ He followed it with the corner of his eye, seeing the chaurus he had spotted tumbling over itself. He returned to his own. There were two coming his way. Red flashes filled his sight and dark energies were pounding across his body.

He traced a half-sweep, intercepting one of the two creatures who was running his way with his claws exposed. He waited until he saw the pale red liquid sprouting from the spot where the sword had hit him before turning to his left to face the other one. He rolled his wrist and retracted his arm, bringing his left hand to the handle and gripping strongly with that as well. He lowered the sword first and then drew a similar arc with the blade, but this time from the bottom upwards. Before the blade could reach the target, another burst of lightning flashed beside him. The sword slashed the abdomen and the stomach and stopped when touching the ribcage. It wasn't a strong push, otherwise they would have broken through the bones.

 _That's minus three._ He looked again at how many were coming their way. _Four more, however._ Different options were available once again. _I'm not in a position to be in danger,_ he calculated, and cast his eyes back at where Serana stood. She was a few feet behind him, but none of the falmers seemed to be targeting her. There were another few of them that had stopped in their tracks. _They were confused by the lightning bolt. I'm at a slight risk._ The awareness of that didn't bother him, thought. His mind was silent, focused. His most powerful weapon was honed and working at its best. He glanced back at Serana for a slight moment. _How I have missed this,_ he thought, a sneer warping his lips by curving the corners upwards. _How I have missed fighting for something. Having something or someone to lose._

It was all a continuous flow. A river of ice, running through his mind. He lunged at another falmer who was coming forward, spearing him through the torso and in between the ribs. Another one was near, extending his claws in the air where his hearing suggested was the enemy. Azrael brought his shoulder away and then stepped off, avoiding the hit. He whirled his blade in the air, above the creature's head, before bringing it down right on its neck. The edge carved a deep wound in the flesh before it stopped.

 _It was him…_ As he tugged the sword out of the frozen flesh and looked in front of him, that thought intensified. _All of this, everything that happened, because of him. Why, even?_ There were more falmers coming his way, but he was slightly distracted. He let his mind wander away for those few moments. He trusted his instincts. They would have kept him alive. He continued to see, but in the back of his mind the questions wasn't easily put down. _He must have been infected by someone, and when he did Auri'el forsook him._ And so, Vyrthur had hatched a plan so large in scale that it had become part of the Elder Scrolls. _The blood will blind the eye of the Dragon. He was the one._

He drew a wide sweep, severing a falmer's head from the neck and then sinking into the shoulder of the one that came afterwards. He infused a stream of magicka into the blade, and the edges spurted with flames. The creature screeched, moving in such a way that Azrael could carve out the blade without moving it. _He will die,_ he thought, looking at the severity of the wound. If not for the pain and the shock, the bleeding would have weakened him to make him remains still until his demise. _He will die, and so will you, Vyrthur._ All of that. The journey, the vampires, everything had been a consequence of his plan.

 _You're blind._ Serana's lightning annihilated a chaurus that was walking in his direction, at which point he leapt to the side and slashed down another one. _It's true, I do appreciate an intelligent scheme when I see one. But you were not smart. You're shrewd and fanatical and there's a difference._ He had not predicted anything. He knew what had to be done, and he had released that secret onto the world idly waiting for the day it would have been found. He had not foreseen what consequences it might have caused, what fate awaited those who fell victim to the prophecy he had crafted. _And for what? Because you lost something you cared for? Because your god turned your back on you?_

Fanatism. It was a common story as of late in his journey. Revenge against something greater than themselves, for something that was considered an affront. _Snow Elves,_ Azrael said to himself. _You know nothing. Long after you were gone, a god turned her back to my people._ He was different. Azrael had lived a whole life feeling distant and estranged, but sometimes he reminded himself that he was a Dunmer of Morrowind, and that nothing could have convinced him not to be proud of it. _What do you know, Vyrthur? What do you know about loss? You don't take revenge on a god._ The Nerevarine had struck down the Tribunal for having betrayed their gods. _And I'm striking you down, for having betrayed Auri'el. For having betrayed Akatosh, my own father._

No matter what, fate always seems inescapable. _The Wheel turns, nothing is ever new._ Any person who was awake enough to see the world for what it truly was could comprehend it. He focused back on his surroundings, retracting his hands and performing a large uppercut that flattened the falmer who was charging towards him, leaving a gaping gash on his chest. _But first, Vyrthur, you have some explanation for my companion._ Serana didn't see the patterns in the world. She was not that kind of person. She knew it on another level. _She still hasn't understood. But I will make sure she does._

There was something else flowing through his limbs aside from the dark surges of strength from his vampiric core. He tracked it to the tight jaws and the heat he felt in the palm of his hands. _Anger._ He twisted his wrist and sliced to the left, interjecting a falmer's extended claw. The blade severed the bone and the sinews. The creature screamed, stumbled and crashed against his shoulder, which he had out in between himself and the blind Elf. He raised his left hand and reached for the neck of the falmer, gripping it and pulling. He felt resistance ceasing and also heard the sound of bones shattering, very faintly in between all the other noises.

'No…' Azrael cast one last glance in front of him and then listened. It had been Vyrthur talking. 'No, no, no,' he said, only repeating that monosyllable. 'Centuries of waiting for this? Never!'

There was a loud cracking sound. _The ceiling._ That was the direction it had come from, and it was the only thing that could have possible made that noise. _If he was strong enough to do something to the stone of the mountain, he would have done so already._ He raised his eyes, just to make sure. He was right. There was an enormous crack in the ceiling, and although it hadn't reached the ground yet, there was a drizzle of small frozen crystals coming down from the fissure.

'Azrael!' Serana's voice. She wasn't exactly behind him any longer. 'The ceiling's coming down.'

'I know.' He looked around. There were now eight falmers coming in his direction. More of them were breaking free of the ice chunks. There were three coming his way. One was visibly a female, he could tell even from the shape of the skeleton alone. _Can I handle this?_ He calculated. _That one first._ He saw himself moving. _That second._ He needed to guide it only at first, and then the entire plan unfolded itself. _Yes I can._ 'Go after him.'

'What?'

 _Why do you need to hear things twice?_ he thought. He recognized that a momentary irritation had influenced him, and he pushed it away. 'Go after him, I said. I'll handle these ones. You go after him and make him tell you the truth.'

There was a burst of lightning. Azrael followed the flash from his side all the way to an isolated falmer that had been unsettled by the ceiling cracking. _Many of them were, actually._ The thunderbolt touched the frozen skin of the creature, and he could see it becoming yellow and then red before the full force of the spell reached it. 'What truth?' Serana cried from behind. 'And why does he have to tell me?'

'Just go.' He brought his right foot backwards, nearing the longsword to his chest and preparing strike. 'I don't want to be the harbinger of that information once he's dead.' He extended his hands to their maximum length and struck a charging falmer with a horizontal strike.

In between all the different noises, there was a new one that came. It was alternate, as if repeating twice at a time. _Good lass._ They were Serana's running footsteps. He focused again on his hearing, trying to pick up as much as he could. _I will need information on the state of ceiling and of what they might do to one another._ He balanced his attention, looking for a brief moment in front of him. There were four more falmers who were after him. _They'll only multiply._ He had seen several dozen of them spread all across the corridors, and he had seen a couple of them coming from the way they had come in. _They're gathering from all over the palace._ The one, obvious solution was nearing the point of implementation. _It's a pity to damage this place, but nobody will likely ever see it again. Let it be a trial of what would happen to Castle Volkihar._

He checked the three things that he would constantly need to control and manage until one of them was no longer relevant. First, the sound coming from the ceiling. The cracking was still deep and sounded more like a rumbling that came from another place. _It still hasn't collapsed. But it will in the next minute or so._ Second, where the falmers were attacking him from. The same four as before were now closing in, probably having discarded the noises as something not immediately dangerous. _They will come two at a time_. He moved his fingers, mentally rehearsing strikes accurate enough to cut down two at a time. Lastly, he checked on what was happening behind him.

Serana was stepping on the spikes of ice that separated Vyrthur's throne from the rest of the room. He could guess it by the sound made by her boots as they slid on the ice. _She's close. Then why isn't Vyrthur doing anything?_ The answers were two, both very reliant on the Snow Elf's impaired abilities in logical, complex reasoning. He might have reacted at the last moment, believing in his untouchability, or could have not expected her to manage to cross. The sounds continued, and stopped at one point. A new sound reached his ears. A scream. Serana's. He tensed for a moment, but then released it. _Idiot. It's not pain, it's a battle cry._

The first two falmes caught up to him. He executed the first of the two moves he had planned. These two were arriving one behind the other, but by the time he had finished one off the other would be upon him. He flexed his shoulders and lowered them for maximum reach, extended his arms to their longest and drew a wide sweep, but without hitting with the edge. He aimed to hit with the flat portion of the blade. The hit went through, striking the creature on the temple and making it tumble rightwards. Azrael looked at the temple. _Smashed ear, the skull is crushed. He's dead._ The corpse fell in the way of the one who was coming right behind, who tripped over the cadaver. Azrael retracted the sword and impaled the living falmer on the tip of the blade.

From behind him came a strange sound, but one he was familiar with. It was overwhelmed by a scream. 'You little...' Vyrthur's voice was even more croaking now. 'Get off me!'

 _I am almost tempted to say that you deserve it._ Azrael rarely reasoned in those terms. He knew the world didn't function on the bases of merit and blade, of right and wrong, and so there was no point pretending that it did. However, he saw how that idea might have been so appealing to someone, for instance, of the likes of Serana. And there seemed to be something inside both Men and Mer that believed that who did bad things would receive bad things in the end. _Even if it's not true, you deserve everything that comes your way._

There more rustling sounds coming from behind. 'He's getting away!' Serana cried, presumably to him.

He locked his eyes on the two falmer who were arriving, and adjusted his footing in preparation for the second maneuver. This was more elaborate. He gripped the sword with both hands, more for the added maneuverability that for the strength. Ever since the turning, the sword seemed as light as feather. 'Go after him,' he said, not distracting.

'But what about you?'

'I've got two aces up my sleeve.' He thrust the sword forward, catching the first of the two creatures in the wrist. He immediately brought the blade to the other side, putting it low enough to make the second falmer trip on it. He did, and he cut his left ankle when coming in contact with it. The screech was barely heard. Both of them were either slowed or crippled, and now they were both at sword's reach. _Time for the final strike._ He brought both hands near the right side of his head and charged for a split second before releasing.

The sword disappeared even from his sight. He saw it reappear only when it stopped, leaving behind a trail of pale red blood. Two thuds followed, of both enemies dropping on the floor. One had a gaping gash across the muzzle while the other had its throat ripped open. Before bringing his eyes off them, he focused once again on his hearing. He couldn't hear Serana's steps of her voice any longer. _But I can hear the ceiling._ The rumble was getting stronger, and now it wasn't muffled. _There is a fissure and the sound is coming through. Half a minute._

Lastly, he raised his eyes. _By the Three._ There were many more falmers coming from the corridors. However, he could see something else trudging towards him from the other end of the hall. It was a titanic humanoid form all made of solid ice, oozing a pale blue winds from across its surface. The head was small and almost lacked any shape, but a pair of light blue eyes shone from underneath the ice. _Where in Oblivion did you come from? I have never seen that kind of Frost Atronach. It must be an ancient spell. Well…_ He stepped back, lowering the sword and opening his arms. _Time for the aces._

There was something strange about being a vampire, for him especially. The summoning of the power, the blood rushing through his veins felt different than before. The blood of the Dragon still flowed within him, no matter how little of it there was materially. The energy reached up to his throat. 'Voslaarum!' He took on a deep breath, even if it was not air that he needed. 'Naaslaarum!'

He lowered his eyes to the end of the hall. The falmers over there seemed strangely confused by the sound he had emitted. _It might have echoed so strongly that they're uncertain about its origin._ However, this had not stopped their advance. They were still pouring in through the hallway and they were coming to that main space in droves. _The ceiling._ He glanced upwards. The fissure had gotten larger, but it wasn't on the point to come down. _It's the first time ever I wished a ceiling to collapse on me._ However, it might have been of help right now. _It won't come down on its own, but maybe with a little help._ He couldn't do anything though. _This is much farther than the orb in Blackreach. A Shout wouldn't reach it._

There didn't seem to be any shortcut. He looked at the falmers coming. _Thirty, forty maybe._ He had to fight his way to the end, until the arrival of the two Dragons. They were not far, but it would have taken a longer time than what he had _._ He closed both hands on the grip of the sword and concentrated. _There's got to be a way._ He couldn't fight all of those. None of the things that popped up in his mind worked to defeat them all, especially as there were more streaming from the other wings of the palace. _Think._ Two different points of his mind joined in a sort of mental flash of light. He released the tension on the sword's grip and sneered balefully. _Obvious. I need to flee._

He turned around sharply, already with the left foot forward and ready to make the first step. _I need to make most of them lose my scent. I can't fool the Atronach, but it will do._ He finished the spin and looked carefully. The path that led up the small slope to Vyrhtur's throne was still covered in ice spikes, and the seat itself was at the highest point. The ice was lucid and seemed rather slippery. There was a breach near the throne, a large crack in the wall of ice. _It's very recent._ It had opened when he had destabilized the ceiling, it had to. _The ran through there._ He quickly looked at the ground. The Snow Elf had been stabbed, he was certain of it, but there wasn't a blood trail. _He probably hasn't fed in centuries. There isn't a living things in miles._

He darted towards the slope, already measuring his strides to avoid slowing down when having to jump across the ice spikes. He still gripped the sword in his right hand. There wasn't time to put it away, and he didn't know when he'd have to use it again anyway. The confused cries of the falmer behind him and the increasing rumbling that came from the ceiling was filling the air with increasingly stronger noises, but in between them he kept listening. Any moment now, he might have heard wings flapping in the sky. They were the sounds he was waiting for. Vyrthur had been blind in his planning. His project was rigid. If anything went wrong, and it had, he had nowhere to run. _I'm not blind. I'm not just hoping for victory. I know I will win. I win before I go into battle._

He leapt over the first two spikes. There was just enough space to land safely among two more of them, and he aimed for that small sliver of terrain. His left boot slid on the ice. Though it made a different noise than Serana's one, he could clearly understand that they had slid on the same spot. Or at least, in the same way. _I haven't looked where she went, actually._ He jumped again, this time casting a glance down to search for any traces that Serana had left. He saw a small scratch in the ice not too far from him, but on a different spike. _She took the way that looked easier,_ he reflected, looking and putting together her track. _But it was actually more difficult. She didn't look carefully._ On the other hand, he thought that she was probably perplexed or intrigued by what he had said. _It's normal that she didn't pay as much attention._

From the ceiling came a crack stronger than the ones before. Azrael skipped over one of the last shards, but took a moment to listen carefully and reason. _That's not natural. Something hit the ice._ Now that the problem was well defined, the solutions came on their own. _Either it's a boulder, or the two Dragons._ At that point, he listened more intently. _I don't hear any wings flapping, but then again, I don't hear any boulder rolling down the inclined ice._ Everything pointed at the two Dragons, even in lack of proper evidence. It was the only logical solution. _So much for being smart. One needs only to look._ Every object gave clues on how to understand it, and every prey showed how it could be killed.

He hopped over the last spike. Now he heard a sound that resembled wings flapping. _It's not quite it… But it's muffled by the ice, that's why._ The two Dragons were above the ceiling, trying to get in and the only way to get in was to bring it down. He needed to keep going, and they would handle the rest. _They're ancient and strong. They can handle that many enemies._ Everything was slowly coming together. He aimed at the breach, casting one last glance across the hall. The number of corrupted Snow Elves had multiplied. _How many did Vyrthur keep down in those corridors?_ From what he had seen, at least a hundred, but they could have been more. _They probably are._ He was looking at seventy of them at least.

 _There's going to be the sun shining._ He hurried and crossed the breach. The stabbing pain in both eyes came before he could realize that he was facing directly to the East and the light of the rising sun was coming directly at him. _East? I thought we would be facing slightly more towards the North._ He put together what he knew. He wasn't wrong. The exit did face the North-East, but the breach was in its center and faced elsewhere. The sound of the ice shattering behind him was louder now, but he was outside of the dome that covered the hall he had left behind. _What happens in there doesn't concern me anymore._

Now, casting his eyes upwards, he could see the two Dragons. One had dug its way through the ceiling, and the other was hovering above in wait. The Dovah turned his head around, eyeing him and crossing his gaze. ' _Dovrahkren, Thuri!_ ' he shouted to the sky. Azrael looked elsewhere, stealing a sweeping glance at his surroundings. The noise of the ice dome collapsing covered almost every other sound, but he could hear something else. Mixed, confused sounds. _The sounds of a fight._ It was Serana against Vyrthur.

He found them only by looking to the North, where his eyes were less blinded by the light. Serana was repeatedly trying to stab him, in a furious flurry of attacks. She was saying something. '…us! You…' Azrael stretched his ears as much as she could and tried to read what her lips spelled. 'You used us!' There it was. She was repeating that phrase over and over again. _I don't find it hard to imagine her anger. But she had to find out, and it had to be from him._

Another sound came from behind. It was like a roll of thunder. Screeches, screams, the beat of the two Dragons' wings. One of them was spewing fire, judging by the sound. Oblivion was breaking loose back there _._ Azrael darted across the barren end of the fortress, casting glances at the white stone with which it was built. The sounds behind his were stating to become ear-splitting. He resisted the impulse to bring his hands to his ears and block them. _The dome is coming down. This should be the end of part of our troubles._ There was another thing, but he knew something that might have swung the battle in his favor.

 _Vyrthur might be whatever we call him, but he is stubborn._ He had waited for millennia for his plans to come to fruition. With an infinite amount of time at his disposal, he had waited patiently what what was bound to happen. _He never tried a new path. He never surrendered._ He was one who backed down from a fight. You could see something of his brother's righteousness in him. Once harm was done, it couldn't be undone. He didn't know what it means to forgive or forget. _And this is why I will be able to kill him easily._

Not slowing down, he lowered to the ground to reduce the length of his shade as much as he could. He also slid the longsword back in its place, careful not to make it squeal too loudly. He doubted he would have heard nonetheless, but it was always better to be sure. _So focused._ He flexed his hand and waved his fingers as he closed in. _So single-minded._ The Snow Elf was advancing, because Serana seemed to be losing. Azrael looked at her, and her face was livid and wet. She was crying. Tears were streaming down her cheeks. _Not of sadness though. She's angry._

He came up behind Vyrthur, and his hands seemed to move on their own. They held those movements within themselves almost. They rushed to his neck, first finding their place around it and then closing on it. When he touched his skin, the Snow Elf seemed to be quick enough to react, but the Dunmer was faster and he had the element of surprise. He closed them around his neck and throat, ready to move again. He looked at Serana.

'Did he tell you everything?'

She bared her teeth. 'Yes.'

Azrael finished the motion. After a brief moment, Vyrthur's neck ceased all resistance. A vampire doesn't die from a cut to the throat. It takes something more. And Azrael made sure the corpse he had in his hands was completely limp before letting go.

* * *

A/N: This is sort of the bottleneck of the story, I feel like. However, I'm not here to comment on the chapter, I am intruding to give an announcement:

Simply put, DKNR will be slowed down significantly in the coming months. I have a deadline on some other stories I wanted to publish elsewhere that cannot be pushed back. If, for any reason, you would be interested to hear more on that, PM me. I'll not share information on that here. Anyway, the original plan was to finish DKNR before those other projects, but I was delayed and I would have to rush everything. And the ending of DKNR isn't something I want to rush. I already feel like I had to finish thus one in a hurry.

Long story short, I won't be publishing with the same regularity. This book is _not_ on hiatus and is _not_ abandoned. Just slowed down.

Take care, dear readers. 'Till the next.


	27. Chapter XXVI: Queen of Day and Night

Chapter XXVI: _Queen of Day and Night_

* * *

It was a strange sort of feeling. Warming in the soul, yet running cool and calming through his body, like a flowing stream that runs down the mountains. He did not find a name for it initially, and didn't recognize it as something that commonly rippled to the surface of his thoughts. It was different from the dry heat of pride or the freezing cold of cruel satisfaction. The only reasonable conclusion came from what information he had available, which linked the feelings very robustly to the people who were sat in front of him, musing on the simple yet difficult question he had asked them. He was sat where he was, in the position he was in and with all the power he had partly thanks to those people, each one a little sliver that had summed up to something more. The whole is not quantitively different from the sum of its parts, but qualitatively? _Yes, indeed._ Very different. What he felt was appreciation.

It was a new viewpoint. A courtesy of Serana, no doubt, who had unwittingly allowed him to borrow that perspective. As Azrael looked back on his past, especially what had occurred since his arrival in Skyrim, he saw many things; numbers, systems, ideas, plans and the hidden mechanisms of nature and the world, which he had sometimes been aided by and had sometimes consciously manipulated to his advantage. But when Serana told her story, there were none of those things. Her story was a story of people, not concepts. And in light of that, the Dragonborn could clearly see that when seeing his story as made of people, than his whole story was in that very room. Only a few people were missing, and not because he had chosen not to invite them.

As he caught the sound of an uncertain sigh from one of the people sat near him, he absorbed that feeling into the cold, immense space of his mental world. It was Falk Fire-beard who was had uttered that sound. He was stroking his red mustaches, as he had been doing since the meeting had begun, and his other hand was gripping the edge of the table nervously. 'If I may,' he said, 'I am still uncertain of how we will be able to arm such a large amount of men with such special weaponry.'

'You will be,' Azrael replied. 'Around twenty of them are being forged in the nearby forges as we speak, and your delegation will carry them back to Solitude.' He did a quick calculation, but there weren't mistakes of any kind. 'The material for the remaining number along with the crafting diagrams will be given to you as well, and it shouldn't take more than one day's work of all of Solitude's blacksmiths.'

'Remember that they only need to be edged with silver,' Karliah said. She was probably right in assuming that Falk thought too much about the matter and allowed the spawns of his frightened imagination to overlap with reality. 'Also, as we have already repeated many times, those will only be an insurance. The balance of the numbers should spare the fight from the guards.'

Falk turned around, his expression clearly one eager for confrontation, but with the aim to protect his own position rather than attack his adversary's. 'It's my and my Jarl's city. I will not let any of its citizens come to harm, regardless of circumstances. I have accepted every condition you asked, now let me at least make sure that nothing bad will come from this.'

A principles and moral reasoning in nature. It was good as personal guidance but never as useful in situations like the one they were in. However, one thing that had been remarkably easy to do was making sure that only people who used their head were allowed into that discussion. As Falk turned back towards the Dragonborn, he saw in his eyes that he was afraid but that his fear did not rule him. It influenced him, of course, but did not absorb him. This didn't mean that he was content with him being there instead of Elisif, but he understood why that had to be the case. An example of a principled reasoning that could not be perfectly followed.

Azrael noticed only then how much his mind had wandered away from the current situation. There was no need to remove those thoughts from his mind, but he preferred them to be deliberate, or at least not mindless. It was one of the things that, some time before, had bound him and Elisif together. A rejection of everything that was mindless and directionless. He was content that he had not become one of them, and his proof lied in the fact that Serana had said as much. Time and time again she had expressed her admiration for his ability to see what was around him. See it, not merely looking at it. And in turn, he noticed that those comments were what something he admired in her. She had found something in her which he had failed to find elsewhere, and that was curiosity. Serana was curious about him. The slight discomfort he felt at the notion proved well enough how that was a rare thing.

'A selfish question, Azrael,' said Delphine, from across the table. 'As I understand it, I have no practical role in this beside what I have already done. Am I right?'

'You are,' he said evenly. 'Your expertise is what made you valuable, and you have already done enough by sending the messages I asked you. However, we can easily disguise you as one of the guards and let you be present. Can't we, Falk?'

'Yes,' said the steward, bending his head to the left as if considering something. 'I think we can arrange it, and it would be welcome to have someone who's aware of our plan in our ranks. My only question is, have you ever disguised yourself as a man?'

The Blade smiled faintly and mirthlessly. 'Indeed,' she said, 'plenty of times.'

'Then it's settled,' said the redhead, once again casting his eyes in the Dragonborn's direction. There was a strange glimmer in his gaze, suggesting he had to say more. He hesitated just a moment before doing so. 'I understand your reasons for remaining neutral in the war,' he told Azrael, 'although I do wish we had strategists able to devise plans like what we have laid out now. We would have Skyrim in our grasp.'

'Elisif knows many of my tricks,' he replied. 'You can trust her to make good use of them when the time comes.' And indeed she would. Unsurprisingly, she had learned much more from simply watching him than she had done from listening to the things that he told her. Still, the Jarl's persistence in his thoughts was uncommon, but unsurprising. Solitude was the best place to unravel the weave he had sown. He had just wished he wouldn't have had to bother her again, but things had not gone down that course. And a world without the Dawnguard and the Volkihar was better for everyone. He raised his eyes on the people sat around him. 'Are there any more uncertainties?'

He cast a sweeping glance at all of them. He did not expect any questions from Nazir or Karliah as they would have had plenty of time to ask him for the specifics afterwards, when there wouldn't be so much secrecy involved. The same went for Urag, Phinis and Colette, though they might have used some more time to think as well. Delphine and Falk were the two most likely to have more doubts, if anything because after that meeting they wouldn't have had any more chances for clarifications. Falk was visibly nervous, but he seemed to be musing over the prospects and not about uncertainties. Delphine, however, had a slight frown on her face.

'One last thing, which you have doubtlessly thought about by that I would rather know for sure,' she said, leaning on the table. 'Are we absolutely sure that the message reaches the vampires in time?'

'This reunion has been summoned right now and not yesterday because I have received word from the messenger only this morning, confirming that they have received it.'

The Blade pulled back and laid on the backrest, drumming on the wood with both of her hands. There was a pensive spark in the gazes of every person there as they attempted to imagine how the events would play out. Azrael had no such problem. The pattern of events and the sequence of reactions, of causes and effects, played out in his mind effortlessly, as if it were a memory. Following the branching paths of that weave was intensely satisfying, if anything because he could see the everything unfolding with the same intensity with which it would have played out in reality. In the first days of his fight against vampirism, he had experienced how his mind could conjure life of its own and overpower him. But when they worked in tandem, that was when he was most powerful.

'I believe,' he said, putting his hands on the armrests and standing up, 'that we are finished, for the moment. I will be unavailable for an hour or two, and after that I'll be in my quarters if anyone has need of me. Falk, you will leave tomorrow morning at sunrise. Delphine,' he said, looking at the blade from under the hood, 'I presume you'll want to go with him directly, given the circumstances.'

'Indeed,' the Blade said. 'I'll leave with them directly. Our two recruits can manage on their own for a while.'

'Good,' Azrael said, now standing and putting his palms on the large table. He cast another sweeping glance at everyone there. 'You're dismissed. Phinis, Colette, you go back to your duties.'

The two mages nodded. 'As you will it,' said Colette.

The Dragonborn turned around once as the two of them spoke, folding his hands behind his back and looking vaguely ahead, but with a thousand other images playing before his eyes in addition to the ones coming in through his sight. He heard the sound of the chairs being pushed backwards, away from the table, the bottom of their legs scratching on the stone floor and then falling silent. Three instances of the sound, though many more people were there. Some had more care about making sounds than others. He wondered if there was a criterion that could be used to decide who had made the noise and who hadn't, since he believed he could name exactly who it had been despite not having seen it.

His eyes focused on the real world, and the other images weakened and waned gradually. His gaze drifted on the cover of the books on the bookshelves, running across the back of the Arcanaeum, where Urag's desk was. Two quills lied on it, close to a low pile of white sheets. He remembered the content. They had drafted each of them a few hours before, when the sun was still high in the sky. Now, the light that came into the large library was dim and turning orange. From that moment on, the final plan was in motion.

The footsteps of almost everyone who had sat with him was now going fading, the sounds coming from where the door leading to the stairs was. Almost. There was one pair that was coming closer to him, strolling around him to return to his desk. Urag's. The Orsimer walked in the Dragonrborn's field of vision a few moments afterwards, following the only route he might have possibly been following. His walk was calm and measured. The Orc lived among books and knowledge, a place that would have conquered any other mage's will before long; the fact that he could always remain present and grounded even if immersed in such a well of knowledge was incredible. Azrael had always taken note of how the practical spirit of his people served him well in his duties.

The Orc sat at his desk, grabbing the low pile of papers and looking with a grunt at them. He took the first one and laid it back on the desk, whereas he threw the second to the ground. He continued through the sheets, dividing them in two. The ones that still were useful from the ones who were now obsolete. 'You seem rather confident in the outcome of your plan, Arch-mage,' he said, not raising his eyes from the pages.

'I am.' Azrael moved his head towards the Orsimer, whether before he had only been looking from under the shadow of the hood. He mused for a moment over the question before continuing, but there didn't seem to be any other hidden meaning to it, beside the ones he had guessed immediately. 'With the help of everyone you saw here today, we will have both contenders exactly where we want them to. There is little chance for that to go wrong. The only element that is entirely in our hands in making sure no collateral damage is made.'

'I have dispatched everything you asked,' Urag said, half continuing on their current discussion and half picking up the one that they had left unfinished when all the others had arrived. The Orc threw two more pages on the ground. 'Clear instruction have been sent. I'm getting rid of the useless ones right now, as I'm sure you'll have guessed. Some of this reunion's developments made some of them rather redundant. Regardless, you will not find any opposition when you come into Solitude and neither will the other blood-suckers.' He froze briefly and raised his eyes fleetingly at Azrael. 'With all due respect, Archmage.'

He chuckled lowly. 'You needn't worry.' He had noticed, while staying with people who knew of his new nature, that in their minds not all vampires were alike. It was especially true for scholars and sages, who by tying such gruesome monikers to the vampires expressed a moral judgement more than a generalized hatred for their kind. The would have never realized on their own, but seeing someone they trusted having turned into a vampire and still appearing his normal self seemed to make them conscious that, like Men and Mer, not all vampires were alike and not all of them were blood-crazed fiends. Azrael was not surprised at the display of a such a distortion in their thinking; he had felt the pull of that rushed conclusion upon seeing Serana for the first time.

'How many knew?' asked the librarian, nodding towards the door. He put the last sheet on the desk and rested his chin on his palm, stroking the thick white beard. 'Because it was apparent that some had no clue.'

'Only Falk doesn't know.' _But it was a plural_. The Orc wasn't too attuned to subtleties, which made the utter composure of Karliah and the stern face of Delphine possible indication of their obliviousness to the reality of facts. There was one more thing to say, however. 'Some of them you didn't know, and I suggest you not to try and make hypothesis. You would never guess from where they come from. And I wouldn't answer if you asked me.' Nazir had appositely swapped his red robes for simpler ones that didn't bear the colors of the Brotherhood, Karliah had nothing on that could lead someone to associate her with the Thieves' Guild.

The Orc made a guttural laugh and spread his fangs in the closest thing an Orsimer could do that resembled a grin. 'I understand. If you trusted them with that secret, it's enough for me.' He looked around, at some of the bookshelves. 'It's a pity that we only have so many books on vampirism, and none that mentions your case explicitly.'

'Serana and I can scribble a few notes to add to the Arcaneoum if you so wish.' The understatement was heavy, but required. Urag knew much, but not that Serana was four millennia old. That was knowledge guarded even more carefully than the two of them being vampires. However, they might have passed Serana's knowledge of the Volkihar's story for simple archive work. _We might even have some fun doing it_. Something they had discovered only of late was that they worked well in intellectual work as well. He brought understanding and she provided judgement.

'All jokes aside,' said Urag, humming to himself, 'that could be a valuable piece of work. Not many Archmages have contributed with one of their works to this library, but it would be something possibly valuable. Not to mention, we'd be the first to have such in depth knowledge of vampirism. There would be people coming from far away indeed to have something like that.'

The ambition of the Orc seeped through his words, something that Azrael could understand. _The prospect of seeing so many people coming here to read that tome is amusing. Especially if they came here hopeful for guidance, only to realize there are is no information inside on how to practically dispose of a vampire._ Because that was how it was going to be. A purely academical text. He wouldn't sabotage himself in such a way, and both he and Serana had very believable excuses for knowing so much about vampires. After all, they were the ones who had struck at the heart of the vampire menace, winning where even the Dawnguard had failed. Or at least, that was how they would go down in history. Reality, as it often is, was much more complicated.

'Well,' the Orc said, after a moment of silence. He was gazing emptily at the doors leading out of the library, which Azrael knew being his most concrete representation of the outside world. 'I guess I will have to wait. In the meantime, we should put all our efforts into the current events.'

'Indeed.' Azrael blinked twice, reiterating all information that was left from the meeting and his reflections as he spoke with the Orc. He extended his foot to the side and leaned on it, gradually turning away from the librarian and his desk. 'I'll be in my quarters in a few hours, should you need me.'

'We'll try not to disturb you,' the Orc said, leaning back on his seat and once again attempting at a smile.

Azrael listened to his own muffled footsteps on the stone slabs that made up the floor of the Arcaneoum as he walked towards the set of stairs leading to the outside. He expected his thoughts to start brimming him mind with prospects of the near future soon enough, but they weren't doing it yet. There was still no need to sort through them. He looked first at the big stained glass window once more and then at the shelves in the lobby. Among everything that had happened, he had not returned to the College after the fight with the first vampire. Several noteworthy things had happened in his absence, mainly the results reaped from the changes he had made in his time there. The large pile of maps on the one side and the two opened and half-written manuscripts on the scriptorium beside it were proof of just a couple of those changes.

Being in the College, for every one of its members, gave some semblance of perception of how complicated the world beyond really was. Or at the very least, how big it was. Whoever tackled magic learned that there were things in the world far beyond an individual's control. Azrael suspected it being something that every person with a magical talent thinks on their own regardless of their training, but even while practicing magic he had come to understand that sorcery and thought were almost completely different things. Magic required a certain type of effort, a concentration and control on the ethereal forces that entailed relinquishing control first. It was counter-intuitive, but it taught the person that magic was truly uncontrollable and its force could be but borrowed. That was the thing that clued them into the existence of more powerful forces other than magic.

The Dragonborn found it most interesting that he, someone who was sometimes admired and sometimes revered for his ability to see the details while knowing the big picture, had failed to see the whole of the vampire threat as it rose. _I had understood that there was something else, that was what led me to the Volkihar, but I would have never imagined someone like Vyrthur to be pulling the strings._ He had long thought to be on a personal quest to overthrow a madman's ambition, and he could have only imagined that it would have spiraled into an attempt to thwart another madman's attempt of revenge in a god. And the god who was his father, whether in symbolic or literary meaning. Sometimes things hide much more than it seems at first glance, and even at second and third glance.

There were two important things that he should keep in mind. Firstly, Vyrthur's ambition was almost as relentless as his own, and the Snow Elf's failure to see his own plan completed when he was so close to his final objective was bound to have some sort of lesson to learn. Azrael knew that by the end of his life, whether it lasted a few years or a millennia more, he would have too devised plans that were as long-reaching as Vyrthur's. He did not want to repeat his mistakes, to see such a long wait failing to pay off because of such a small inconvenience. _But it's also true that the Currents of Time functions differently for me._ Many people in the world were subjected to their inhuman games, but he was different. The Dragonborn didn't seem to be affected by fate, instead changing it where he went. _It's no wonder I once thought myself a harbinger of fate_.

The second thing that the memory of Vyrthur arose was different. He wondered, without been capable of satisfying his own curiosity, how Serana felt after that discovery. When questioned, she had answered that she still needed to think about it. It wasn't exactly true, since what she needed to do wasn't thinking. It was just waiting. It wasn't thought but time that healed her wound, although the two things were very frequently mistaken. From what he knew from their journey together, enough time had passed, but how could he know? _Only two days had gone by when we split up. And I wonder what she thought at seeing the Castle one last time_.

Deep in his reflections, now that the thoughts about the near future had arisen, he had climbed the stairs to the main gate leading out. The stairs leading up where all very similar across the descent, which gave a strange sense of walking to nowhere. He pushed the gate wing's open with his left hand, raising his right in front of his face to shield the light of the Sun which would have struck him briefly. The hiss of the portal opening was low, but it was the only sound. The students were all in their quarters at that hour. The light did come in at last, touching first his arm and right side. He sensed his whole body tightening in answer to the sweltering sensation that came from his blood vessels. _She'll have chosen a shadowed spot, at least_.

His eyes, thought partially blinded by the light, scrutinized the yard keenly. The snow-covered plants were still. There was some snow on the statue as well, scattered by the wind. _She came in…_ He looked down at the footprints on the snow, but there were too many, and some were completely scraped by the gales. _But then again, she wouldn't go far_. He looked at the porches, every small piece that was covered in shadow. That eliminated the side on his left on principle. _To the East…_ There were two plants in between plus the entrance to the student's quarters covering many areas, but he looked nonetheless. He spot something in between one of the pillars. _There she is._

Legs tight together, the posture perfect, hands probably held together on her lap, short black cape of the suit of dark grey and crimson cuirass waving behind her, Serana stood on the rim of the porch, looking down at the endless expanse of the sea. Her slender frame was dark against the light of the Sun which came in through the opening, reflected on the stone, lighting up her black hair of strange auburn gleams. How short was her mane now. She seemed to answer the tension coming from deep interpersonal connection by cutting them, as if she couldn't keep all of the intensity inside herself. Now they barely hid the nape of her neck. _Which does make her face more visible, though. If she only showed it to me._

'Your hearing's grown ineffective, princess.'

Serana turned in a flash, much more quickly than he had anticipated; he could only formulate the hypothesis that she was so deep in thought that he had startled her, but the expression she had on her face as she turned said otherwise. She broke into a short sprint to cover what distance separated them, and once again she only gave the Dragonborn time to understand how strange and unexplainable he found her affection for him, a question which was ever more intriguing than its direct reverse. There wasn't much more time to think before she caught up to him and embraced him.

It seemed that every time, Azrael had to make a discovery all over again; he had always found the very concept of relationships something strange; he understood it perfectly from the outside, but it hadn't been until the time when he and Elisif had begun wavering between friends and lovers that he had understood something important, which he now had to learn again every time Serana came to him. Beforehand, he had no idea of what to do. But once she was there, he knew. There was something that didn't come from him mind but from the core of his instincts that showed him. It was something as natural as embracing her in turn sometimes, but he always knew what to do. Or rather, knew what he wanted to do. He had still not found the words to describe it perfectly.

With a small effort, he cleared his mind of all thoughts, bringing all his attention to his senses. He felt her almost trying to climb on his cuirass to reach his visage, and tugged her ever so slightly upwards until their lips touched. Her scent was stirring, but despite only being able to associate it with an odor it was not a smell at all. It was her vampiric scent, which so strongly signaled her good feelings and lack of aggression. They never paid too much attention to it, but they could tell when the other was getting farther away just by that. Azrael suspected there was more to it than they realized and that maybe that was the conduit of their instant understanding and harmonious intentions.

He pulled away slightly, and felt no resistance on her part. Their mouths parted, but she brought her hand to his cheek instead. She had gotten into the habit of always caressing the scarred one, following the old wound down to his chin. 'Here you are,' she whispered, their nearly identical eyes looking into one another. Her pupils stretched and elongated, peering through the darkness of his hood.

'You're well, I presume,' he said, sliding his arms down her back before letting go of her.

She nodded, with a radiant smile of her face. 'I am.' A shadow crossed her features, but it was quickly dispelled by an ironic grin which surfaced on her lips. 'There's a limit to how well I can be right now, but within that boundary, yes. The journey was safe and everything was done as you asked. Nobody noticed anything and I'm more then sure they got the message and will fall right into our net.'

'Good. Did you get a sense of which way the wind blows in the Castle?'

'They seem remarkable calm, despite everything that has happened, but there was something I meant to tell you.' A strange meld of emotions glimmered in her eyes. 'I found their calm strange because I had not yet learned that everyone is the castle believes they have found the traitor you had warned them about. I image you remember your last speech.'

'I do. I had not imagined it would take them so little time to find a culprit, however.'

'But they have. As I sneaked through the castle I had dismissed Garan's absence as a mere coincidence, until I heard a couple of vampires talking very openly about him, and not saying things that were very nice or polite. Nobody would have dared saying things of that sort against Garan, so I looked into the matter a bit further. Following the few things I heard, I pinpointed a spot on the outside of the castle that had been referenced along with him. And, scattered around that spot, I found ashes and vampire dust spread everywhere by the wind. It's true that cinders don't have a name, but there was only one candidate I could think of.'

That did not line up with what he thought might have happened, and there was one explanation for it. He had predicted the Court's behavior based on the current circumstances as of the time of his last visit, which had accounted for a number of other small factors that would have changes. Lord Harkon would have inevitably retreated further into isolation and the power vacuum would have only increased rivalry. A chaotic situation, the perfect fit for someone such as Garan Marethi. But he had made a misstep. Azrael found one likely hypothesis: that he had probably become too zealous in his attempts to expose who he believed was the traitor. For what end, he didn't know, but Garan was a Dunmer too. He had probably seen through him enough to see his true intentions. _The tragic end of the doomsayer_. Killed by those he's trying to protect.

There was something that he wanted to know, however. He looked at her for a long moment before asking. 'How do you feel?'

'I still do not know. I don't regret anything. I made my choice when I left with you in search of the bow, so there's no going back now, but still. I still need time.' A trace, a vague glimmer suggested a tear in her right eye. Azrael looked at her face, focused on her words but allowing himself to momentarily looked. _If nature were a sculptor, it did a stunning job molding her visage_. 'I know you can imagine how it is, but it is still hard. Sometimes you have to sever the limb to save the body.'

His eyes narrowed. 'Serana, he's not you, and you're not him. You're yourself, remember it. You're not severing anything, but if you want to use that analogy, then whatever limb it is will grow back in time.'

She shook her head, momentarily bringing her eyes away from his. 'Azrael, can we… Talk about what will happen after? You know…' She sighed, bringing her gaze back to his eyes. 'I can't imagine life without the Castle, without my father. What awaits me after we've done everything? If we manage to do everything. And even if we don't, I'll die with a pleasant dream in my memory.'

The sole thought of her dying send a shiver of wrath across his limbs, which he immediately cooled down. 'That,' he said, 'depends on you too. Your mother will probably be back, so that will still be like it was. But I think you'll need a fresh start. Our futures seem bound for the foreseeable future, and I can read your mind up to a point on what you want,' he said, a leer forming on his lips in accordance with the provocation in his voice.

'I know it seems redundant to ask, but are you sure you don't want us to go our separate ways after we've dealt with what remains?'

'It would be both illogical and stupid. And whatever will happen, nothing is insoluble.' Something clicked in his mind, something both simple and powerful. 'You're probably a bit too old to be my blushing bride, but we've done worse. However, there's an even more redundant question to ask: Do you want us to continue together?'

She smiled teasingly, but there was relief elsewhere in her face. 'Yes, of course. Even if we have to see all eternity together.'

Feelings always summoned hyperbolic thoughts. 'Do you say that to everyone who promises to kill you a father?'

'When I'm in the mood, yes.' She was smiling. He had done that on purpose, because she had never managed to smile before if her father was mentioned. It was something delicate, but not as much before. He didn't suppose her answer to be so premeditated, but it was an answer to two questions: the one he had asked and the one that wondered if she was comfortable being reminded the fate that likely awaited her father. To both, yes, when she was in the mood. An ironic answer for both. 'So…' she said, almost feigning hesitation. 'Together?'

A sneer warped the Dragonborn's lips. 'Until boredom do us part. Regardless, what do you think I'm aiming at with the recent scheming?'

She shook her head, with a look that betrayed all her confusion. 'I have no clue. I know something, but what I can picture seems horribly damaging for everyone, so I'm inclined to guess I haven't understood everything And what are you planning, truly?'

'I'm planning a coronation.' Something from his instincts one again told him what to do. He leaned in closer and kissed her on the forehead, sliding a hand on her shoulder. 'Your coronation to Queen of Day and Night.'


	28. Chapter XXVII: Live by the Blood

Chapter XXVI: _Live by the Blood..._

* * *

There are people who can enthrall themselves with imagination, at the prospect of things that will or simply might happen in the future. They conjure up images of possibilities and dreams and manage to sustain their calm and happiness thanks solely to it. Azrael was not one of them. There was an unimaginable pleasure deriving from applying one's mind to a problem, a plan or a prospect, but was there ever any satisfaction if the plan was never to become real? Surprisingly, the answer was yes. He himself had entertained himself many times through thinking alone. However, he had never pretended his ideas to be real.

And regardless, the satisfaction he was feeling now, of having outsmarted his enemy and having won even before the battle begun was something that stood above most of the simple, insignificant pleasures of the world. People ate, slept, drank and reveled, but nothing of it compared to the feeling of having built in one's mind a plan so perfect and a plot so precise that victory, which is this case corresponded with the idea's soundness, was an inherent part of the plan.

His body was motionless, but he was aware of his restlessness. How much time had passed since the last time he had felt that impatience? It was good impatience, the one that brings closer to the confirmation of one's calculations. Time was on his side, both because he was no longer affected by it and because its natural course would give him victory over his enemies. He was faintly aware of Serana's presence by his side, and how she was the one who made that victory all the more satisfying.

He took a deep breath. He could, since both him and Serana had fed before going to that banquet. While the members of the Dawnguard arrived, it would have been better for the two of them to be seen eating something. The poor couple that had yielded some of their life lymph to ensure their disguise would wake up alive, if only with a headache and tooth marks on their neck, the next morning. It was thanks to that blood that some semblance of a mortal's breathing moved the Dragonborn's chest and allowed fresh air to flow down to his lungs. He rested, in awareness and in the conscience of the situation. The table was set, both the metaphorical one and the physical one.

All the people he had asked for sat around that table, and the ones who were present but had been instructed not to be seen were there as well, rigorously out of sight. The clean plate and the tableware was placed in front of him with the utmost precision. He felt a strange sense of repulsion when his skin reached for the silver of the knife and fork. A faint acre scent came from the poisoned glass of wine. Raising his eyes on the red liquid and thinking it was blood wasn't uncommon, and happened so quickly that his mind could not control it.

Serana sat quietly beside him, and he couldn't always tell how she was feeling. She changed from expressions of faint anxiety to fervent anticipation, in motions that only him and the other vampires of the Volkihar Court might have hoped to pick up. Azrael didn't quite know how to interpret the fact that she had made herself so beautiful for the night. Her hair were combed skillfully and her face, enlivened by the fresh blood, was calm and quietly disarming. Was it simply the social situation, or was it a slight hint of mockery towards their enemies? She was giving them a personal hint that the coming night would be their funeral.

The only one who knew about the plan and managed to maintain a semblance of composure, outside of Serana and himself, was Elisif. She sat at the opposite end of the table, clad in a green dress that matcher her eyes flawlessly. Thin lines of gold were sown into the fabric, which wasn't that uncommon. All her garbs, especially the green ones, had a touch of gold. She sometimes cast glances at him, smiling faintly when she felt him gazing back, and then returning to the light conversation she entertained with those that were closet to her.

Despite the formality of the occasion, it was apparent that there was something going on. The amount of soldiers and guards present in the hall was unprecedented, and the silver weapons that hung by their sides were a hint that only a few people had picked up on but that told a lot. The guards were probably the most nervous, though visibly eager. They were all volunteers, and they were Nord volunteers, which meant that many of them had accepted the task half in the desire to face the fiends and half for the desire to face their own fear.

Serana gripped the armrest tightly and leaned in towards him. 'Can you feel it, too?'

Azrael nodded. 'Indeed.' The scent of the vampires was very close, so close that it was not impossible for some of them to be inside the palace already. How ironic that their own capacity for stealth should ease the Dragonborn's plan along. If anything had betrayed their presence, all the people in the room would have been alerted to the danger and the entire plan would have failed. But there was nothing that could betray their presence. Not a sound, and not a smell.

'I thought,' Serana said after a moment, 'I would enjoy my first gathering a little more, but everything is even more dead then the last feats at the Castle. I can't say if it's me or if nobility has become even more dull.'

'When you have risked your life as many times as we have and are focused on a mission such as ours, the trivialities of the world tend to lose importance. But we have our mission. For all of them aside from Elisif, and perhaps Falk, triviality is all there is.'

'It's a calmer life.'

'And an unfulfilling one.'

Serana grinned, her lips tight, and drew away from him, sitting back in her chair. She drummed with her long fingernails on the wooden armrest. Azrael felt a strange meld of feelings at seeing how natural the tight-lipped smile had come to her. They had discussed at length what things were to be done in order to conceal their nature to all the people present, and thus far they had stuck to those rules. How they did it varied greatly, though. She was able to do it through a lifetime of adhering to social norms. Azrael could only do it thanks to his self-control.

It was late in the evening. The Dawnguard would have arrived any moment. Delphine had been quite steady in her updates on the state of their enemies, and her attention to their movements were testament to a painstaking attention at their every action. Esbern had once joked that he couldn't have slept easy ever again if he knew he and Delphine were on opposite sides, and the more the Dragonborn saw of her abilities the more he understood the old man's hyperbole. Since the Dragons were gone and she had managed to focus some of her attention on the Thalmor, her determination and precision had grown even more impressive.

Azrael had never ceased to ponder how Delphine could still be his friend. They led lives of secrecy, their goals were sometimes similar but they were very different people, and while the Dragonborn had no issues accepting some of her tendencies, she had accepted his with a strange ease. She even agreed to collaborate in situations like those, where she wasn't directly involved and where the actions were not exactly upstanding, by the definitions of common morality. Despite her heritage, Delphine had shown herself time and time again to be a pragmatist, who thought in a very precise way but could act flexibly, the way the situation required. Those were the kind of allies to never let go of.

Azrael was still busy conjuring up Delphine's face and reflecting on her traits when he spotted a man coming from down the corridor. A guard's uniform was all he could see for several moments, despite his enhanced sight. The soldier had a full helm, a regular suit of armor with the Hold's banner on it and the silver blade that all of the volunteers had. He seemed calm. His strides were relaxed, his breaths rather shallow and the faint rhythmic sound of his heartbeat was steady and soft.

Azrael knew the reason of his visit long before the guard reached the door and spoke. 'The members of the Dawnguard are here,' he said. 'They said that they accept our invitation to come in, but they have a request. They ask all you, outside of the Dragonborn and lady Serana, to leave the hall. Even you, my Jarl.'

The Dragonborn lay back on the backrest of his seat, stealing a sidelong glance at Elisif. She knew what to say, almost like an actor who knows his line. 'Tell Isran and his following that they are welcome to join us, but they're not entitled to give such orders. We will remain with here and hear what they have to say, if need be.'

The guard bowed his head and turned on his heels, walking down the corridor. Azrael grasped the armrest and cracked his neck, takin in another breath of fresh air. The first piece had fallen into place, and the cogs were turning. He kept looking at Elisif, who nodded and stood. The attention of everyone soon gravitated on her. There was a nobleman who gripped his fork tightly and had a tense jaw, while the one right beside him seemed curious at the Jarl's action. Those two were the things everyone in the hall was doing. Azrael wondered for a moment whether worrying or being curious was the sign of greater intellect.

'My kind guests,' Elisif said, folding her hands in her lap and looking down for a moment. Some of that timidity was genuine, as was her worry. 'The events that will go down tonight are important, but there is something else you should know. As the Dragonborn had told us, his plans for eradicating the vampire threat are real. However, the Dawnguard would have things done their own way, and while this is a reasonable thing, they have also done something that I believe to be out of line. They have accused both the Dragonborn and his companion, lady Serana, of being vampires.'

Azrael monitored carefully the murmur that ran across the table. There, their allegiance would have been revealed and their names would have been remembered. The hypocrites who would dissimulate or oppose the accusation with too much vehemence were those who would foolishly believe to have found his weak spot. Those who would support the claim and attack him publicly were the true idiots, not even worthy of attention after that night.

He looked, counted and committed everything to memory. The only one that was completely out of the problem was Falk Firebeard, who had been informed of the supposed rumor at the College of Winterhold's meeting, well in advance. What was strange was Serana, who in spite of everything tensed up almost imperceptibly. Azrael wasn't even too sure of how he had noticed it. Two vampires could share an immense amount of information through the means of simply being close to one another. Whether that was because they were also intimate mentally or because Serana was the vampire whose blood run in his veins was unknown to him.

Regardless, the guests had endured their strong moment of shock. Azrael had counted a lot less idiots and hypocrites than he had expected. He didn't believe that any of them could be able enough to conceal his reactions so thoroughly that he wouldn't notice, but he would have asked Serana for confirmation after that was over.

'But, my Jarl,' said Erikur, 'this simply cannot stand! We should have them brought over here and sentenced to death!' Azrael's lips twisted in a sneer. The vast majority of Erikur's income came from the Thieves Guild, and while that outburst had convincingly seemed aimed at defending the Dragonborn's person, it had really been driven by the fear of seeing his own treasury emptied of all his riches.

'Do not be so radical, my dear.' Azrael turned towards Serana, who had been the one to speak.

–––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––– A Ω ––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––

'There is no need to punish these people for believing falsehoods,' she continued, her tongue quickly flowing with the considerate words she was so used to using with the Court. 'They have been clearly misguided and led astray, and since their accusations are without any basis there is no real threat made towards us. I understand the Jarl's words worried you, but there is no need to.'

'Is… Is it true?' stuttered Thane Bryling. 'Are these accusations truly false?'

Serana instinctively laid back. She had the ability to calm their worry and prevent their fantasy from feeding on those emotions, but Azrael was the one with the authority to convince them that they were in the right. It was his turn.

'Of course they're false,' he said, slowly and with a mocking hint in his voice. He let silence hang in the air for a few but inexorable moments, in which he looked directly into the Thane's eyes and left her some time to ponder what stupid of a question she had asked. Serana remembered being in the noblewoman's place, and it was nothing short of humiliating.

Thane Bryling quickly lowered her head. 'Of course,' she said, 'of course, forgive me, Dragonborn.' Serana noticed her lips still moving, as if she was trying to say something more. If she had said something more, which she shouldn't have, it would be something thought to compensate the offense she had just made. She moved her mouth without speaking for a few more moments when she finally spoke. 'I apologize for my doubtfulness. But these days, with all these rumors of vampires stalking the land no one can ever be trusted.'

Serana had to resist the impulse of nibbling at her own lips in satisfaction, which in turn would have prevented her from making a comment of her own. She quietly waited. 'No one indeed,' Azrael said coldly from her side, the vibrations of his voice carrying over to her. Bryling was out of the fight, and she had even reinforced her point. The unspoken message that now hung on the hall was precisely that no one could be trusted, aside from Azrael.

A few pairs of footsteps were coming from the hall. Only Azrael and her could hear them, but the others would soon enough. Battle boots. The survivors of Ancestor's Glade were there, judging by how many there were.

Serana listened in, but she could not distract herself from the strong scent of her own kin. They probably perceived her, too, and they were calling out to her. They crept along the outer walls of the Palace, ready to come in as soon as the enemy was near. She shivered at the thought of the bloodbath that would ensue in that relatively calm hall. Azrael had thought it through, she had no doubt, but she couldn't manage to shake off her discomfort at the unpredictability of events as well as he.

She looked at Elisif. The Jarl of Solitude appeared melancholic as ever, and this once she was also rather tense. Serana had no idea of the extent of her knowledge in regards to the plan, since that anxiety could have been just like her own fear of what would happen or a more mundane fright at how the situation would turn out. She knew something though, surely. She had been the one to give the order to equip the guards with silver weaponry. The reason why should have been apparent.

As the first of the Dawnguard fighters began to come out of the corridor, she drew a long breath. That was it. They were all there, and now everything would go down as Azrael had meant it. The vampire hunters, even the few she could see, were in bad conditions. Isran did not lead them, which could only mean that he still couldn't walk without support and he was in the back. Leading the group were two crossbowmen and the woman whose hand had been burned to a crisp by lightning. A murmur ran across those who were seated at seeing such a horrifying wound.

Fate had not been kind to them, it seemed. Their faces were tired and rough, with livid rings under their eyes. Serana looked as the fighters with the crossbows on their back, who were the only ones who didn't have any injuries, and had the distinct impression that they had lost some weight. Their vambraces were attached tightly to their forearms, as if they were just a little bit too large. Even considering that they might have stayed near the Glade for a while to recover, they had been on the move for two weeks, or more. They had never returned to Fort Dawnguard after the fight, or so the woman named Delphine had claimed, and the elements as well the people did not seem to have been kind to them. They didn't have the best reputation as of late.

She felt a little pity for them. They were men and women who had spent the last few months training and knowing each other to one day fight the vampire menace. One day, a man with a grim reputation had showed up at their doorstep, offering to help, and unbeknownst to them had become their greatest enemy. Greater than her father. So great an enemy that he had decimated them, along with his vampire companion, within the stone walls of Ancestor's Glade. And now there they were, desperate and pushed onwards by the last straws of determination, the fire of hatred and righteous fury. Had they been the heroes, their actions would have made quite the ballad. History would have forgotten the homes they burned and the settlements they had torched just to draw out one lonely vampire. History would have forgotten all of the things that had set Azrael's mind on destroying them.

As she finished tracing their tale, Isran limped in. Both of his hands rested on the shoulders of one of his fighters, and it was rather clear that he could barely keep himself on his feet. There were no debilitating wounds to his legs. He was just extremely tired. His beard had grown even longer and was filled with dirt. There was a long scratch on his forehead, and the most visible thing was the large bandage that covered the wound Serana's ice spear had caused.

He was the last of them. They were six in total. Maybe there were more at Fort Dawnguard, but there were only six of them there, four of which could fight. _Such fools_ , Serana thought, _how did they think they could come here and triumph? They must have gone mad with bloodlust to think they could come here and do something._ Maybe they counted on the support of the soldiers and the other people present, but if that was the case, they had underestimated their enemy. _We defeated a much larger battalion of their troops. A few guards armed with silver and four of you would not stop us_. It would cause trouble enough to force Azrael to disappear indefinitely from the public eye, but would that be such a problem for him? Their next move was to attack a Castle, which would remain empty after the fact and would provide comfort enough for someone who wants to live out of the world.

There were the Guild and the Brotherhood keeping him there, however. Serana still had no idea of what Azrael meant to do with Castle Volkihar. The only clue he had was the story he had told, where the Castle was burned to the ground. But how?

She shook her head and focused. That didn't matter. The Dawnguard mattered in the meantime.

'Greetings, Isran,' Elisif said from the side, bowing slightly to their guest. 'I would like to–'

'You!' Isran howled, aiming a finger at Azrael. The Redguard lowered his quaking hand and brought it to the wound, who must have stung when he had moved so suddenly. There was a dark light in his eyes that was too close to fanaticism to be reassuring. Serana, for a moment, saw her father's face in the gaunt visage of the vampire hunter. They had both become so keen on some colossal vengeance that they had ceased to be what they had been for their entire lives. Despite their opposite motives, they had become eerily similar people before the end. 'You!' he shouted again. 'How do you have the courage to stand among these people? You, who slaughtered us!' He turned at Elisif. 'My Jarl, that man is a vampire and a murderer. We have to kill him now, before he spreads any more madness and death.'

Elisif's throat shook as if she had trouble getting out words, but she managed to speak in a rather composed tone. 'We know of your accusations against him,' she said, 'but I can pass no judgement without proof. Do you have any?'

Isran groaned and grit his teeth, turning towards Azrael. 'You, fiend, drink from your goblet. Even when fed, vampires cannot drink as we can. Grab it and empty it in one draught. Then we'll see.'

Serana could not believe it. Azrael had come up with a very good idea that Delphine had managed to implement flawlessly. She looked at the goblet, such an unassuming piece, but which was there in front of Azrael as a result of the intricate web of a thousand manipulations. No less than three people had worked so that the goblet, exactly that goblet, could be there in front of him and containing what it really contained. Someone had marked it on the bottom with a scalpel to make it recognizable, someone else had gone through the trouble of putting the poison in and Elisif had arranged the seats so that Azrael would be the first person who was offered the drink and could thus choose that precise piece.

Despite all of his sense of self-righteousness, Isran had lied to achieve what we wanted. He knew there was poison in that goblet, Delphine had told him so in her letter to him and she had the Thieves' Guild's blessing, who had been their most generous patrons. It was not liquid he was interested in, at all. If Azrael had reacted to the poison, then Isran would have been wrong, but he knew that wouldn't happen. He counted on him not doing anything at drinking it, which would be more than enough proof that he was a vampire. For them, anyway.

Isran's command had caused quite a bit of commotion in the hall. 'I repeat! This cannot stand!' Thane Erikur cried. Serana cast a sidelong glance at Azrael, who had gripped the armrests tightly and pushing himself to his feet. An old habit. A vampire couldn't notice the difference in weight.

'Silence,' he said. His voice rang clear in the hall, and everyone's head turned his way either immediately or as soon as they had finished speaking. Elisif looked at him with a barely visible smile on her lips, as if she had been reminded of something. The smile died out after a moment, and she looked at Azrael while she tormented her hands. Azrael cast a sweeping glance on the hall and continued after every other sound had died. 'Isran's idea is sound. Anyone who wants the truth should look at me until I empty this goblet.' He coiled his fingers around the goblet and held it, bringing it close to his lips. He looked at Serana before drinking. 'Death to the wicked,' he said, raising it a little in the air.

Serana smiled, although what truly came to her lips was half a laughter and half a grimace. She suppressed both, knowing that either of them would have given too much away. Instead, she put on her usual courteous smile, which didn't mean anything and couldn't have been interpreted as anything more than that. Her eyes fell to the ground a moment after though, as she thought about what was about to happen just next.

Azrael brought the goblet to his lips, inclined it and sipped from it. He brought it immediately away, holding it at some distance from his hidden face for a while. Serana stole a glance at the Dawnguard members, and they all looked at him with such hatred that their knowledge of what would happen was apparent. _A pity for them that nothing of what they're imagining is going to happen_.

Azrael threw the goblet to the ground, bent to the side and coughed. As the mixture of wine and poison spilt on the ground, Serana sensed the smell of venom herself, although she wasn't quite able to understand what it was. She recognized one of the ingredients, which used to grow in her Castle's garden, but not the others. _It looks quite real_ , she thought, looking at him as he bent slightly to the side.

He coughed again. 'Poison,' he muttered.

Some immaterial happened around Serana. The scent of her nearby kin became stronger and was now tainted by a sharp note, which screamed thirst and desire to kill. _Now I understand…_ she thought. The exact order she had given the vampire was to attack. A fit of cough. It wasn't a metaphor; it was quite literal. She looked around, but there was nothing. Not yet. She looked at the hall, where the first few people had begun to understand what had happened and the faces of four of the Dawnguard fighters had turned to incredulity.

All sounds quieted down when a screech came from the ceiling. There were large windows, and one of them had been opened wide. A lonely, small bat flew in. Black, with a leathery hide and long white fangs. It pounded its small wings and screeched with hunger and hatred, if such a thing were possible.

And then Oblivion broke loose.

At feeling the scent suddenly becoming stronger, Serana took out her dagger and breathed in one last time as all forms of torpor melted away. A rush of tenebrous energy surged through her limbs and mind, clearing it of any thoughts and priming it with the thrill of battle and danger. Her fingered tensed around the dagger and ten spells all rehearsed themselves in the palm of her hand, ready to be shot out at a moment's notice.

The first man to fall was one of the two warriors who kept Isran on his feet. From the dark corridor, a large mouth with long fangs appeared and closed around his neck. Only a few drops of blood trickled down his throat before he cried and turned his head around, trying in vain to wrestle himself free. Soon afterwards, the bite played its magic and the man went limp. Not dead, although his face was bleaching each time the vampire swallowed.

The other vampires appeared out of seemingly nowhere. Suddenly they were behind plants, doors or furniture, while yet more of them plunged into the hall from the windows above. Some of them leapt down while others turned into thin mist and smoke as they materialized inside the hall. But they had no idea of what was coming to them, the great deal of preparation that had insured their defeat at the minimum possible cost.

She followed the plan. _Now the trap springs for everyone. The Dawnguard are already dead, and the vampires will soon be._ They through they were the hunters, but their prey was nothing but a prop, there to lure them into a trap that was designed for them. _They don't expect us to be on the mortals' side, for one_.

A heightened sense of awareness descended on her, and she felt as if she had eyes that saw in every and all directions around her. She was covered behind, and was free to attack the first unsuspecting members of the Court that had dashed in. With a quick glance to the side, she saw that Azrael was ahead of her. A paralysis hex had already left his hand, and tiny flames now danced in his palm. He gripped the longsword with his right hand, and the blade seemed to irradiate faint igneous reflections.

Serana dashed on one of the vampires that had come down from the window above. He might have sensed her coming from behind and might have even guessed her intent to kill him, but it hadn't been enough. The dagger sunk in the nape of his neck, and a quick turn to shatter the vertebrae ensured that he wouldn't be surviving that wound. Dry and blackened blood came out of him. _Quarter-breed, has fed in the past few days_. She ripped the dagger out and moved on to her next target.

She would have to pay more attention from now on. The guardsmen had unsheathed their blades and were intent on killing as many of the vampires as possible. That was the glory they had been promised, and none of them wasted a single moment waiting. Two of them were circling around the Jarl, swinging the silver blades towards the three vampires that were trying to get close to her. They wouldn't have survived without support, though. _As soon as the surprise from seeing those weapons will go away, they will attack and overwhelm them_. That was where she should go, and the sight of all the enemies that stood in her way was more a source of thrill than anything else.

Noticing that none of the vampires had yet noticed that she was, in fact, against them, she slid the dagger back into its sheath in one fluid motion. She called forth streams of magicka to her hands, which flew through her arms and erupted on the surface of her palms' skin as small, purple arcs of lightning. The small tempests of electricity grew in size as she called more and more energy, tearing a rent of ever-increasing size in Aetherius. It grew until the light flashed in her hands and surge of energy spewed forth with a roll of thunder.

The stream of violet energy tore through a vampire's back and abdomen, charring the armor and disintegrating the flesh, killing him before he could even scream. The lightning bolt spread, breaking off into multiple little arcs that zapped and scorched many other fighters in its way. A shard of the lightning bolt touched the table and carbonized the wood, turning a few inches into a smoking piece of soot and ashes.

She looked around for a moment. Azrael was surrounded by a few corpses already, all of them caught unaware. His blade had reaped a few victims already, and was falling on another vampire. She was a known face at the court, the progeny of a quarter-breed, with the telltale cross-shaped lips and gaunt cheeks. She had just had the time to turn towards Azrael, but had failed to understand the threat. The flaming blade was now but an eye-blink from ending her life.

More reinforcements had also joined the fray. The vampire that had bit the Dawnguard's warrior had been impaled from behind with a long silver sword from one of the guards that Azrael had ordered to keep out of the hall unless there was immediate danger. Many more followed, and three more were running up from another way into the hall. The ones who had been in from the beginning had woken up to the situations and were striking the vampires with a boldness that their enemies were not expecting and were not prepared for. Nevertheless, four guards already lied on the floor, lifeless. One of the two that had protected Elisif had killed an opponent, but had fallen thereafter.

Serana hurried. She fired another lightning bolt with one hand and a long and thin shard of ice erupted from her other hand, piercing Fura Bloodmouth through the sternum. Serana had seen the Castle's blacksmith as soon as she had entered, thirsting after human blood. There had been a moment when the line of fire was clear, and she could not let it slide. The icy spear shattered inside of her chest and left her lying on the floor, shaking with unnatural spasms.

As more and more of both factions died, Serana knew that it was only going to get worse. The vampires had all entered, and now streams of red haze were filling the room as more and more of them directed their attention at their enemies. Some of them seemed to have finally realized that something wasn't quite right and that both her and Azrael were taking the other side in the fight. Serana saw two of them looking at her, the slightest expression of surprise crossing their tense, bloodthirsty faces. Two rolls of thunder echoed in each of her hands, dispatching of both in a single moment with a flash of light and a thunderclap.

One more turned towards her. No other vampire in the room had yet fired spells of that magnitude, and seeing those two violet arcs landing right in the vampires' chests would make some of them wonder. She recognized the one she faced. He was one of Vingalmo's underdogs. He was too slow. He would have had the time to deal with a mortal, but not with her. By the time he had managed to assess the situation, a long shard of ice had already torn through his chest and rent part of his throat as it splintered from the inside.

There was no further time to waste, however, as the other guard who stood between Elisif and the vampires had fallen to an opponent's blow. She quickly looked around, and a wild and reckless instinct assured her that nobody would notice anything in that mess, and briefly channeled the dark vampiric energies inside of her. The momentary rush allowed her to leap aside and speed through the three unsuspecting vampires that stood between her and the Jarl in a flash. She noticed only as she was reaching her that Azrael had followed the same idea and had reached Elisif himself.

She pounced to his side, at which point it became immediately apparent to all the court members present that they were defending the mortal, who they didn't probably know. Only those who went out of the Castle, which weren't a lot, might have heard of her from some lower-bred vampires. Regardless, their faces took on a vengeful and angry expression as they threw themselves at her, faithful in their numbers.

Serana struck down two on her side, but the third one had almost managed to stab her through the shoulder when a faint heat reached her forehead. A flaming blaze hissed above her, leaving a fan of fire in the air. It was Azrael's blade. The vampire that was attacking her collapsed against her, with a seared cut across his cheek and temple.

The bloodlust waned a little. _Elisif,_ she thought. She was still exposed. The woman had curled up on the floor and was covering her face with her hands. There were no enemies on her side that threatened to attack her, and those that remained were engaging the guards, whose numbers were proving to be a challenge for the vampires. On the other side there were still many, but Azrael was on them and had already cut one down in a whirlwind of fire and steel. She bent down, but refrained from touching the frightened Jarl. She just looked at the blood-soaked sleeves of her dress. The blood was in several places and didn't come from one wound. A life-draining spell had hit her, and as life was drained from her the skin had ripped.

Serana raised her head. Now that the fighting trace was off, she was a little worried. She had always seen Azrael fight in places where there would be no collateral damage. But inside the Palace, he had to be careful. None of the complex rotating swirls that she had seen him perform with the blade could be executed, and the same went for any large spell or, worst of all, the Thu'um. He would kill an ally or an innocent bystander at best or wreak utter havoc at worst. There were many things made of wood in those interiors. If he, by accident, had touched them with his blade, the whole place would have been on fire shortly after. _The corpses are going to be troubling enough._

Six vampires remained. One fell before her eyes under the blows of three guards and their silver blades, but not before sinking his teeth into one of them and ripping out a large chunk of flesh from his victim. Another one fell, struck down by more of the guards who had come from the corridor. Yet another crumbled to dust when Azrael grabbed him by the chin and sent a torrent of flames up his skull and down his throat.

 _My father's court_ , she thought, looking at them as they fell one after the other. She had known many of them since she was a child, and she could not understand how she was looking at that scene with that amount of detachment. As true as it was that they were a danger, she was amazed at how lacking in emotion she was. That was her past. It was the thing that helped her to go on, that gave her guidance. _They're all going away, in part by my own hand_. She had been the one to trick them, and she was responsible, and it was all on her shoulders. Responsibility isn't shared by the guilty, only multiplied by their amount.

She was afraid of her own lack of reactions, until she noticed the one thing that there was. A cold, steady feeling. It flowed through her much like her vampiric strength did, making her limbs steady and keeping her head clear, focused on what had to be done. _How strange it is,_ she thought, looking and still being surprised as Azrael plunged his clawed gauntlet into a vampire's side and ripped out the flesh and armor. _I have never been surer of anything else in my life._ The extent of what she had done, of what still awaited her, was too much to take in all at once. She had learned to make one step at a time, and had learned to ignore her mind's attempts to think that easing her way through that ordeal would make her lose the meaning of it.

She watched as Azrael ensured the success of his own plan with his own final blows, leaving a wounded vampire at the mercy of the guards and thrusting the flaming blade deep into the last one's throat, despite her attempts to evade the hit. He put his hand against her shoulder and drew the blade out, as the flame that sparked from it died out. Serana stole a last glance at the corridor, because there was one last thing that should have fallen into place.

And it had. The Dawnguard members were all dead.

'What… What…' The muttering came from one of the Thanes, whose name Serana didn't remember. He had probably been stammering that single word for a while, but only now they could hear him. The last of the vampire's screeches had died out. Her hearing drew her attention to the windows, where a few lonely bats were still flying.

Elisif brought her hands away from her head and looked. She trembled as she did so, but kept looking. Serana bent down on her, gently putting her hand on her shoulder. 'It's over,' she said. 'It's all over.' She stopped for a moment. _Who was I really telling it to? Her, or myself?_ Regardless, that was the truth, though it meant something different to every single person present there.

The hall gradually came back to life. The noblemen that had cowered in the corners and had put the guards between them and the vampires as shieldd stepped into the hall, their faces painted with horror at the sea of corpses. Serana noticed that Elisif's first gaze was towards Azrael, even before she looked up and saw who was the person who had spoken to her. She smiled, but she was shivering as if she was cold. Relief, fear, worry and a hundred other things crossed her visage every eye-blink, varying as she searched the room with her eyes. Serana followed her eyes and realized that she was counting the casualties.

One of the windows on the ceiling closed shut with a thud. Everyone turned sharply at the spot, and only Serana and a few others had noticed the small tear that had opened in Aetherius. It was Azrael. A faint orange light played out in his hands as the telekinetic spell drew the handles towards the floor and closed the windows. He closed all three while twirling the sword in his hand and sliding in away on his back. He was getting ready to leave, and as much as Serana still had to think about everything that had happened, she knew what the plan entailed and that time was of the essence.

She stopped for just a moment looking at him, noticing how strange Auriel's Bow looked on his back. That trace of white against all that black was out of place, yet strangely fitting. It wasn't the first time she put away those thoughts only to come back to them later. Something had happened to the bow since Azrael had taken possession of it. She wasn't sure what, and she didn't know if he knew either, but something had definitely happened. She could only guess, but surely a bow crafted by the alleged father of the beings which he shared part of his soul with would react in some way to his touch.

'The Dawnguard… They're all dead.'

It was one of the soldiers that had spoken. He knelt beside the six corpses, piled up in the hallway, checking to see if anyone was still alive. _They're not_ , Serana thought, not sensing any life coming from them. She had seen the first one fall to the vampire's bite, and the others had been taken down by a bladed weapon. Slashes and thrusts. One of them was covered in this cuts from head to toe, maybe the work of a single vampire fallen prey to blind fury or many that had attacked him all at the same time.

The amount of dead vampires surpassed the number of fallen mortals. Never in her life she had expected to see such a thing happening. It could be done only by the means of deceit, because nothing could have stood toe to toe with that many vampires. Left free to roam a battlefield, there would have been no end to the devastation they would have wrought. But there? In a small, confined environment and surrounded from all sides? They had done it. They had done what even the Dawnguard could not do.

'My Jarl,' Azrael said, 'I know there are things to do, but given the circumstances it's best if we and Serana leave this place immediately.'

Part of the plan, of course. Elisif nodded and tried to get on her feet. Serana slid a hand under her forearm and helped her stand on her feet. _Don't make it seem too easy,_ she reminded herself. The woman was as light as a feather for her, but not for others. A mage with such thin limbs such as her could have never lifted someone up that easily. She looked at Azrael again. Patience was the only thing required.

'You can leave with my blessing,' Elisif said. 'And I think congratulations are due for your foresight. There had indeed been the need for weapons that would help us fight here.'

'My Jarl,' said one of the noblemen, 'you cannot let them leave now. Everything that happened, a little convenient, wasn't it?'

'Aquillius, this is no time for you personal suspicions,' said Thane Erikur. The man was leaning against a wall, breathing heavily, and his face was still white with terror. 'Don't you see? The vampires were trying to get the Dawnguard when they were at their weakest. And they managed…' he said, looking at the corpses. 'This is no time for accusations. If the Dragonborn must go so that any more of these massacres do not happen again, so be it.'

'I agree,' said Bryling. 'All the more, the Dawnguard had fallen too low to fulfill this task anyway. Poisoning one of their allies with the pretense of proving he's not an enemy? That's unconceivable.'

 _This speeds up everything,_ Serana thought. That passage should have been done by Azrael himself, but Bryling had just shown herself to be either really gullible, really stupid or blindly devoted to the opinion of the majority. She didn't know; she knew too little about her. She looked to the side, where Elisif still held on to her arm while slowly letting go of her grip and trying to stand on her own. There wasn't any more blood coming out on her forearms, which meant that the cuts had not been deep.

'Unconceivable?' the man, Aquillius, asked. 'That sounds like something that was concocted beforehand. And how did you survive the poison, Dragonborn?'

Azrael looked behind him and knelt down upon spotting something on the ground. He rose and shoed the object to the man. 'I have an antidote for every poison recorded in common alchemy books. It would be unwise of me not to have it.' He looked at the man for a moment, as if thinking, and then offered him the small vial. 'If it served to quell your fear, have the last drops sampled by an alchemist and you will have confirmation that this is, in fact, the antidote to the poison.' The small flash was almost empty.

The man retracted his hand. 'I still do not swallow this lie.'

'Truth is not for you to accept,' Azrael said, slowly and coldly. 'It is simply the way things are.'

The man agitated and turned around, towards the fallen members of the Dawnguard. 'That's it!' he cried. 'They were in on it, too. They knew they'd be giving you a poison to which you carried the antidote! They knew, and they sacrificed themselves so that this could happen.'

'Aquillius, you're raving,' Bryling told him from the side.

'None of this makes sense either way,' he snapped in return. 'This was a setup, from beginning to end.'

'The Dawnguard,' Azrael said, ignoring the last exchange, 'probably thought I was truly a vampire. They poisoned me thinking that I wouldn't react since vampires are immune to all forms of venom. That would have been their confirmation that I was the enemy.'

'And how were you able to recover from the poison and start fighting them?'

'Antidotes work rather fast if they are drank closely after the poison in ingested. They can neutralize the effects before they even start to spread.' He looked at the man from up-side down, and that physical fact became increasingly evident. Serana remembered her mother often using her knowledge on a certain subject to highlight the ignorance of her opponent and undermine all of his arguments by showing how presumptuous the opponent was. This was practically the same.

'When,' the man said, 'did you drink that antidote?'

'I heard the scream of the Dawnguard's fighter as I untapped the flask.' He paused for another short moment. 'You couldn't have seen me. Two guards had stepped in front of you and you were looking elsewhere.'

Serana sighed and smiled faintly. _This has been his entire life in Skyrim. People whisper things about him, which are logically sound and oftentimes correct, but they never have any proof of it._ She had talked with people around the land as they followed each one of their objectives. People said many things and heard many rumors, but there was never anyone who had solid evidence. And as much as that is irrelevant to gossipers, it is to those who seriously think about what he was up to. As long as no evidence emerged, his word was the only truth they could accept, and his word was taken by many to be valid. _We Nords have a tendency to mistake fearlessness with purity of heart. Among us they commonly come together, but not so much in other races._ That was especially true for Azrael, who was part Dunmer, part Dragon and a also something else which was completely unique to him, to all his life and all the things he had and had done.

Aquillius clenched his fists and stared at the floor. He didn't say anything. Azrael put the flask with the last drops of the antidote, which he still held, on the table before casting a glance towards both Elisif and Serana and stepping towards the door.

Elisif let go of Serana's hand. The two women looked at one another in the eyes for a moment, and Serana felt her heart melting when she saw what peaceful and melancholily happy expression the Jarl had on her face. They spoke without words, and there was something deep inside that told Serana that the two of them might have even grown to be friends, one day. Elisif cast a last fleeting glance at Azrael's dark frame and the looked at her again. _He's in your hands, now,_ she said, or that was what Serana thought she would have said if any words had been spoken.

Azrael dragged the corpses out of the corridor one by one, and then looked back at Serana. She gave him a nod and skipped to his side. He gave the hall one final look. 'Do not be concerned if we don't return immediately,' he said. 'But if we tarry away for too long, then the mages of Winterhold have detailed instructions of a course of action.' He turned, the black cloak whirling behind him and Auriel's bow glimmering with a red, hellish shade. Serana turned back, smiled faintly and followed him through the hallway.

* * *

The shores of the North Sea were dreary as ever, even under the blood red light.

Serana looked at the sky. It seemed like a dream where the Sun had been turned upside down. It felt like being in a dark and bloody reflection of their usual world. _My father was mad, and is still mad_ , she though. _Vampires do despise the Sun, but its light is what makes the world we live in what it is. This is something different. It's worse than Coldharbour._ The similarities where uncanny. The Mace of Souls' realm was a mirror of the real one. The one they walked on right now also seemed a distortion of the real one.

Instead of the Sun there was a giant, red, circular wound in the sky that bled red light. A dark halo with tenebrous reflections encircled it, cutting its outlines clearly from the rest of the red sky. _The light is the same as in the cathedral, with the stained glass,_ she thought. That blood red sky was a reflection of a vampire's most animal and supernatural nature, the one that was cherished by the lower-bred but that she hated. She suspected Azrael might have hated it, too. The self-imposed descent into instinct detached the person from both the heart and the mind. They cared about one each.

'There's something I haven't told you,' Azrael said at one point, as they neared the boat that would bring them to the Castle. 'Two, in fact. The first is that I'll not be coming with you on the tender, but I'll still be the first to reach the Castle.'

'You still haven't told me how you plan to assault a fortress like that with at least ten vampires still holed up inside. We might be strong, but we're no match for them.'

'All in due time,' he said, but he had not cut her off. The mystery was kept mostly to delight her with the surprise, rather than for one of his usual purposes. 'The second thing is that I had been thinking about the Prophecy, and I still haven't quite made up my mind about it. Each Scroll is tied to a name, and the names of those we gathered are Blood, Sun and Dragon.'

'And so?'

'Do you not think it strange that it is the Dragon that summons it?' He pointed at the gaping red wound in the sky. 'The Blood Sun?'

She slowed her pace, her thinking too intense and contrived to allow her to move at the same time. _That would mean…_ She thought about it, but she didn't see any solution. She saw the riddle, but failed to find a way out that seemed plausible or that held true all of its premises. 'I think it is strange, but I do not understand.'

'I fear Vyrthur had meddled with things far beyond his understanding, and accidentally created a foretelling which spelled his own doom. Did we really subvert the prophecy like we thought, or did we only go down the route the events were truly supposed to go?'

'I… I don't know.'

'Neither do I, but I wanted you to know. If there is one thing I know, it is that the Currents of Time are ever-changing and unpredictable, but among the infinite futures which the Scrolls can divine, only one of them will happen, and whether that is already pre-determined or bound by the choices of those who walk the mortal realm is still unknown, even to me.' He looked at the red hole in the sky. 'Anyway, you should embark.'

Serana complied. There was no use discussing his orders now that the end to everything was so close. Her instinct to question him and defy him was always there, but there was something stronger. Just as there had been when she put her kin to the sword in Solitude, she felt something cold and hard pushing her onwards, surpassing fear and doubt and giving her a wisdom more profound that everything she had learned in the past seventy years of her life. She stepped and hopped inside the tender.

She grabbed the oars and bent outside the small boat, putting a hand against the ground and pushing away from the shore, careful that the keel didn't meet any rocks. She sat on the stern and kept pushing with one of the oars until the whole keel was in the water. She grabbed both oars with one hand and paddled once to get away from the shore. 'Be safe,' she cried at Azrael.

The Dragonborn didn't reply. His gaze was fixed to the horizon, his hands by his side and his fingers waving. He then raised his head to the sky and a roll of thunder erupted from his mouth.

' _Paarthurnax! Dov, Zeymah, lahvraan_!'

* * *

A/N: There are a few things to say but I'll save them for when this is really over. The final chapters should be coming in a matter of weeks, so stay tuned.


	29. Chapter XXVIII: Die by the Dragon

Chapter XXVIII: _...Die by the Dragon_

* * *

The wind, the waves crashing against the stern of the tender, the same numbing sensation in her arms as she rowed towards the open sea. It was very similar to the first time she'd been there, when Azrael wasn't yet one of them. It seemed a lifetime ago, and the very concept of him not being a vampire sounded wrong somehow. She remembered thinking he was a vampire when she had seen him for the first time, though the scent of fresh blood running in his veins had quickly made her aware of her mistake. And after that long journey, she had been the one to paddle towards the castle. Just like this time, only this time there was the bloodied sky glaring at her from above and Azrael was no longer in sight.

 _How long have I been out here?_ she wondered, unable to see anything that might have given a glimpse of the time of day. The gaping wound in the sky didn't move like the Sun did, and there were no stars that could tell the way. _I only hope I've been rowing in the right direction._ The endless expanse of the sea was the only thing she could see in every direction.

She struggled to keep her own thoughts at bay. _This is why I enjoy being with others,_ she thought, _they distract me from all the things going on in my head and give me something to focus on._ And when alone, a vampire doesn't have a lot to focus on. Her heart was still, she wasn't breathing, there was no heat and no other sensations worthy of notice in her arms, and the movements she made had become so monotonous that she hardly noticed the mental effort anymore. The world around her was similarly unchanging, and once she had grown uneasily accustomed to the red shade that the crimson disk cast on the water there was nothing else to keep her focused.

Her thoughts were the only place to go back to, but they overwhelmed her. _Once you touch that shore, there's no going back. You'll be killing your family, the only people you truly know,_ she though. And as much as she thought she knew it, she found out that she really didn't. She had been guided onwards by the urge to end her father's madness, but had always put her affection for him in the back of her mind, from where it now whispered with accusatory tones.

There was one thing, one weapon which she wielded fearlessly against that fear. _You're my old self,_ she told it, and the thoughts would momentarily disappear. She remembered what Azrael had told her. _You're tired of swinging, are you not?_ She was a pendulum; in her feelings, actions and thoughts. But it was natural that one's feelings should change depending on the moment. That is the way of all things that live, even vampires. But thus far, she had allowed her feelings to dictate everything, her thoughts and actions included. She did what her feelings told her to do, with the result that those things were irrational, scattered and with no sense of coherence. _Now, there is something more._

At first glance, she had guessed that Azrael simply had no feelings. She had come to realize that he had, but he wasn't swayed by them. When out in the cold outside of the Castle, the first time he had held her in his arms, he had claimed that a monster lived inside of him. He might have been right. His feelings were something different, something so violent and dark that he thought of the as a monster, around which he had built the icy cage that everyone saw and dealt with. But he was capable of great understanding when one could go just underneath that cuirass of impenetrable cold and unbreakable hardness. _And I, the fool that I am, thought that he had no values. He does. He holds rationality, intelligence and secrecy above all else._ It was incidental that those resulted in a demeanor that seemed unpredictable and capricious.

She had been with him for so long that she had understood and emulated that adherence to an internal compass, even if it was not the one most people had. _The goal comes before everything, except the system by which it is achieved. Remember that well, princess,_ she had told her. It didn't matter if she felt horrible at the thought of putting a dagger in her father's back. It had to be done and she knew it. Nothing, not the vampires that stood with him nor her own doubt would stop her. _I no longer am his little girl._ She was no one's little girl any longer. She was Serana of House Volkihar, Daughter of Coldharbour. She was Lord Harkon's daughter and Azrael's lover, but those were things that were only added to her, but didn't define her.

It was a wonderful yet harrowing feeling. For the first time in her life she truly considered the prospect that death could just be around the corner. There was no one but herself to protect her from the world.

She squinted her eyes, noticing that she had completely forgotten about her surroundings for a few moments. Or had it been minutes? She couldn't tell, but something had snapped her out of her trance. The wind was no longer hitting her shoulder.

She drew the oar inside the boat and looked behind her back. She knew before looking that the only thing that could block the wind was the Castle. Its black walls were covered by thick mist that was of the same blood red as the red light of the sky, and a hellish vermillion haze hung just above the sides, where the waves splashed against the walls and covered them with foam. The tide was high. _It must be dusk, then_. The sight of the Castle was sending shivers down her spine, but she didn't know why. And after a moment, she realized there was something else.

There was a sound coming from all around her. A faint whistle or a hiss, rhythmic yet strangely erratic. She looked at the water, falling prey to the fear of the gigantic water creature that her mind had conjured up. She calmed down. There was nothing in those waters that could do that, and even if, she could have defeated it. She kept rowing, listening intently. The sound seemed to come and go, and she didn't understand how it was arriving from all directions at once. Except… She listened closer, and realized that it was coming from behind her, but the wind that traveled in the opposite direction sent it back. When rowing she showed her back to the Castle, which meant that the sound was coming from the same way she had come.

 _From Skyrim's shore, then_. Whatever it was, she was supposedly staring right at it. She gazed at the horizon, but there was nothing. And yet, the sound was getting louder. _Am I blind? What is happening?_ There had to be something, but there was nothing in the water and nothing on the horizon. The water would be rippling all around if something that made that sound was coming closer. It was only by aimlessly looking at the sky that she saw them.

An image flashed before her eyes. Azrael, standing in front of the crowd in Falkreath, telling them the story. Hooded and cloaked, darker than night itself, he had said those words that were enthralling for everyone, but prophetic only for her. _And with his enemies' gone,_ she remembered him saying, _he returned to the vampire's king, burned down his castle and killed him._ And at the time, she had wondered how he could tore down Castle Volkihar.

She looked at the dozens of immense Dragons soaring through the blood red sky and she had her answer.

 _I'm not dreaming,_ she told herself, but a few moments went by before she could convince herself of that fact. _This is real. All of them are real._ Now that she had seen what made the noise, it almost deafened her. It was the beat of a hundred wings, maybe more, as the Dragons flew closer to her. The sound now came along with slight, irregular gusts of air that hit her face. Below the beasts, the water they were flying above rippled ever so slightly under their shadow. _I'm not dreaming._

She had doubted she would see one of them, but this she had never imagined. They were more than she could count, and they were all so majestic and beautiful in a frightening way. They had been vanquished once, one could even say twice, but their souls were still those of the conquerors and the lords of old, who looked at the world from above in every meaning of the sentence. Their impenetrable and intense gazes were all fixed on the Castle, a foreboding light shining in them.

There were so many, and they were so different form one another. The ones she saw best were the ones that flew in the front of the group. There were two whose scales were light blue and their wings white and thin, but the body ridges on their heads and the spiked fins on the back told her of their old age and great wisdom. There was one, a little further away from the others, who had scales of fiery orange, blood red and pitch black. His claws were long and the only sight of him suggested the fury that the beast was feeling. The large horns on his head and barbs on his tail and back gave him a brutal look.

Among all of them, she recognized only one. In the multitude of colors, there was one of them whose scales had lost their tint. They were of a pale yellow, the color of decay and death. Durnehviir flew alongside his ancient brethren, shielded by them and beating his rotten wings with a strength that Serana never thought he could still have. Though his return to Tamriel was temporary, there were few words that expressed the depth of his vigor and the extent of the determination and peacefulness he felt and which irradiated from the way he pounded his wings.

As she looked, the beasts had almost reached her. They were about to fly to her left and reach the Castle. Only then she noticed one of the Dragons, who remained further back into the group, but that was surrounded by a circle of younger brethren. He looked grizzled and old, with scales that were the color of bone. There was a long mark on his neck, which she could barely distinguish. Beside him flew a red Dragon. He was a fighter, by the look of it, but that wasn't why Serana had an interest in him. There was something else. On his neck there was a black outline.

 _Tell me that isn't…_ She looked harder, and the black outside had in fact a humanoid shape. _Azrael, what are you doing?_ she wondered, half in fear and half in awe as the bone white Dragon flew over her, and Azrael with him. The whirlwind made by the pounding of all their wings shook the tender and rippled the water, making the small boat sway in the current.

A roll of thunder came from the heavens. It was Azrael's voice. ' _Ag Gol Enook Kriist._ Scorch the earth and all who stand upon it."

' _Dovahkiin, Jun,_ ' the red Dragon said.

' _Dovrahkren, Thuri!_ ', all the Dragons roared.

The barbed, red-and-black scaled Dragon was the first to descend onto the Caste. He bent his wings and flew down, opening them to their full width and braking right before reaching the walls. A blazing firestorm lit up the Castle's gate and brightened up the gloomy red walls. Serana watched motionless as the flames grazed the stone, heating it to the point of making it incandescent for a few moments, and dispersing the mist. The Dragon pounded his wings and soared above the castle, but not before unleashing a powerful strike with his tail that tore through one of the spires that stood above the main entrance.

The lump of rock fell down, its base cracked and destroyed. It crashed against the wall, smashing into a thousand fragments and a thick cloud of debris and gravel. The bigger chunks hit the ground with hollow thuds. The Castle's gate, which was closed, now slowly began to open. The chains that tied it moved quickly.

Another two blazes lit up the sky and a choir of roars smothered all other sounds. Serana sat in the tender, forcing herself to show her shoulders to the Castle, and grabbed the oars. She had stopped and had remained there, adrift in the current, to watch the flight of the Dragons. But now, the assault was on. _And, by the Mace of Souls, I mean to be on dry land when it happens_. She rowed with all her strength, the oars coming in and out of the water in a whirl of splashes and foam, and the small boat slashed the waves with a speed it was never meant to reach.

The Dragons all flew above her as she paddled towards the island, and some of them also reappeared above her. They had already circled around the Castle one and were studying another strike. Most of them were brown or grey, though one had a vivid color that went from shades of orange to ones of almost purple of violet. Long horns grew along his neck, and he looked older than the others.

Sounds were all she could hear. She heard tails smashed on the rock, claws swiped against the spires and towers and torrents of ice and fire engulfing the stone walls. It sounded like entire pieces of the Castle were being ripped away. The wind that came from that direction carried gusts of burning and of freezing cold. An echoing splash came from her left. She turned, seeing a Dragon soaring higher and an enormous wave coming her way. The beast had dropped an entire piece of stone in the sea.

She sat in a deeper part of the tender and held on tight to the oars. The wave hit the boat and threatened to overthrow it. Serana felt time slowing down when the keel turned almost parallel to the surface of the water, but then they reached the crest of the wave and the boat quickly returned to its position. As they were on the other side of the wave, she grabbed onto the oars and recommenced her rowing towards the shores. It wasn't far now.

 _He's tearing it to the ground,_ she though as she rowed. _There will be nothing self of that place once those Dragons are finished with it_. The sentence itself still sounded strange to her ears. She had learned to adapt quickly during that journey, and it had been her blessing once as it was now. _Dragons… And I thought I would never see one of them from up close_. There had been Durnehviir, but that was different. Those were real. Those beasts inhabited the same world she did. She watched the few who still whirled above her in the blood red light of the sky.

The tender hit the shore. The keel scraped the rock and gravel with a grazing sound and came to a swift stop. Serana drew her arms in, tucking the oars inside the boat with a single pull, and then jumped out of the tender with a single leap. She looked around and found herself to the right of the arcing bridge that led to the Castle's entrance. She drew the dagger and ran to the base of the stone bridge.

A few vampires had gathered in front of the gate. Orthjolf, Vingalmo and a few others. She recognized all of them, but she doubted any of the had seen her. They were all looking up, trying to aim spells at the flying beasts. At one point she saw them all looking a little to their left. The red Dragon, the one Azrael was riding, was charging right at them. A flash of lightning hit him in the neck, but he seemed hardly bothered. His teeth shone in the red light for a moment when he opened his maws.

A firestorm engulfed the vampires. The flames flew beyond the bridge's rail, shrouding in a fan of fire everything that was happening in front of the gate. Serana heard the screams and she heard the red Dragon landing heavily on the rock. The sound was muffled by the sonorous crashes on her sides, which were followed by a long hiss and a thundering sound. She turned to the right, looked and broke into a spring away from where she was standing. The tower on the left of the entrance had been hammered down by the tail-blows of the Dragons, which had weakened the lower part. The huge mast was now falling down, its base unable to hold its weight, and was sliding off towards the ground and crumbling from the inside. Serana looked at it, wondering whether her senses were causing that impression of slowing time or if the tower was truly taking that long to crash to the ground.

She looked at the gate, where the firestorm had left nothing that she could see but a few smoking remains. The red Dragon was now battering down the door with his head and tail. The gate had caved in, its meticulous carvings shredded into a confused mixture of splinters and broken wood and iron. The wooden protection around the watchman's place was burning up in a single, huge blaze and the iron chains were running freely down the cogs, broken.

' _Fus Ro Dah_!'

A blue wave of faint light touched the broken gate, bent it further in for a split second and then tore it off its hinges. The two wings of the gate bent, cracked and shattered, disappearing from Serana's view and they flew inside the Castle into a flurry of debris and incandescent splinters.

–––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––– A Ω ––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––

Azrael stepped swiftly to the side, landing on his left foot and pivoting. The crackling roar of the flames gathering in Odahviing's maws as he conjured the power of the Voice filled the air, together with the first, faint heat. He ended his pivot and pressed on the Castle's wall, halting the movement and throwing his hand behind his back, coiling his fingers around the handle of the longsword and drawing it.

Odahviing shouted a torrent of flames into the open ante-chamber of the castle. Azrael caught the last of both Orthjolf and Vingalmo being engulfed into the firestorm. The crumbling remains of the shattered gate had crashed against them before they could react, and they were still too stunned by the heat around them and the surprise to leap out of the fire. The Dragonborn averted his eyes from the spot where the light of the fire was most intense, but he glimpsed at the Altmer's frame dissolving into a frail pile of embers as the two screamed hysterically.

The flames died out along with their screams. A nearby window burst into splinters, either from the heat or the quakes that were running through the walls. Azrael looked in. The wooden planks that stuck out of the stone were consumed by spiraling blazes. Some of them had already fallen, and thin dust came down from the ceiling.

Odahviing raised his neck and pounded once with his wings, rising from the ground and taking his head and neck away from the shattered gate. Pounding again, he flew off to the side of the Castle. Azrael stepped towards the middle of the paved road that led into the Castle and stood still for a moment, the longsword motionless by his side and his cloak waving in the wind caused by the Dragons and their wings. His black frame stood out in the red shades of the Blood Sun, Auriel's Bow shining grimly with a similar crimson hue and the blade glittering with a sinister light.

Azrael drew an airless breath and strode through the gate.

A quake shook the walls, and more dust fell from the ceiling. He looked at the cloud of pulverized stone. _Soon enough that will be all that's left of this place, aside from a few bigger blocks_. Paarthurnax himself would oversee that Valerica's tower and the Moondial's garden remained untouched, lest there might not be a chance to get the woman out of the Soul Cairn. The rest was at the Dragons' mercy. A heap of shattered stone would be all that was left of the millennial heritage of the Volkihar bloodline.

There are things in the world that, despite being built with the best intention, eventually spoil beyond any chance of redemption. He no longer thought of himself as a messenger of Fate, but he couldn't help but seen the same pattern recurring over and over in everything that he looked at. _The Right hand of Fate sows and looks as the world as it grows, until the day comes for the Left hand to reap its bloody harvest._ There are things which cannot be saved, people who cannot be redeemed. _Someone has to put an end to those things. Why should it not be me?_

Burn it. Burn it all to the ground. It was the final straw, the final act of the long charade that had kept the Court alive through the eons, silently waiting for the day of their ascent. And how real were the prophecies didn't matter to anyone, because the mere possibility was enough to blind all men and women on the pursuit to the possibly of failure. _Maybe there are forces that shape events, making them steer in one way or the other, but do those forces have a will of their own, or are they simply the sum of the things that the little paws of Fate do as they play?_

The _Vennesetiid_ , the Currents of Time, are unreadable by their very nature, and the only thing Azrael had been able to discern about them was that the best way to influence them was to pretend they didn't exist.

The Dragonborn stepped inside the main hall. From the top of the short set of stairs he could see all of it in one glance, illumined by the red light of the sky that was rendered even gloomier by the stained-glass windows. On the left side, a portion of the wall at the height of the chandeliers was bend and had caved in, letting through faint rays of light. Smashed stone and thin debris rained down into the hall, onto the empty chairs and tables. The sound of the Dragons hitting the walls and tearing down the Castle echoed every few moments, spelling a frantic and hectic rhythm.

Azrael looked above him as he saw some dust fall all over his cloak. The Castle would crumble down soon enough. For better or worse, the sand in the hourglass would run out.

In the silence, he sensed something immaterial, nothing more than a sensation, which compelled him to glance behind. _Serana_. He recognized the scent, and could tell just from it that she was at once frightened, exited and conflicted. Her presence had the strange effect of threatening the cold silence of his own mind, but he wasn't suspicious of that sensation anymore. It was part of being with her, which shook the aura of absolute truth around a few of the things he held true above all else.

'So, this is how you meant to burn this castle to the ground,' she said. There was the slightest hint of humor in her voice, a last attempt to keep her feelings in check. 'I admit that I had thought of it as a metaphor. I didn't think there was a way you could tear down this place.'

'Language can be used to trick easily enough, but for once I meant it.'

'You're a madman.'

Azrael turned her way slightly, just enough to glimpse at her and cross eyes for a moment. 'Have I ever argued against it?' He focused for a moment away from the conversation and observed her gaze well, both because he found it interesting and both because he felt a pleasure that he didn't remember well. They were full of sincere affection. He would swear he was wrong, but if he had to put into words what Serana was telling him through that look it would be: You are the world to me. Karliah had once told him about her first few months with Gallus, thinking back to how unsettling it was. Not because she loved him, but because she was loved. _I never thought she could be this correct._

He turned away, still pulling together the last loose ends of that reflection, and the icy veil of his piercing concentration once again returned to the monitoring of the environment and the execution of the plan. There were still a few vampires to cut through, and then Harkon would be waiting for them. There was no trace of him, but it wasn't hard to guess where he'd be. _He would never cower in his chambers when he hears this. If we're here without the others, he must guess that we betrayed him. And he'll be waiting for us in the temple._

He gripped the sword's handle tighter. 'Follow me.'

Serana stepped behind him and cracked her neck, smiling. 'How funny that you lead the way the last time we come here, as I did when we first came.'

Azrael narrowed his eyes for a moment, thinking and observing the endless images that the sentence had summed. 'That's usually how it goes around me,' he said. The places where he had willingly chosen to enter were only a handful, and he eventually he had ended up being the one who accompanied others into those same places. The Dark Brotherhood, the Thieves Guild, the College. Even the Greybeards were ready to admit his superiority, after his victory over the World Eater. _I admire their humility, but when was I ever meant to act humbly during this journey?_

He felt a hand neck his neck. Serana. Smart girl, she knew touching him on the pauldron wouldn't have awakened him as well. 'They're close,' she whispered. 'They're hidden here, somewhere. They mean to ambush us.'

That much was obvious even on a purely theoretical level. If they had attacked the two of them even after their companions had perished from the fire of the Dragons or their two blades, they were stupid. And those were the last remaining members of the Volkihar Court. There had to be something more than chance that had kept them alive all that time. The last days of community life in this Castle would be a sample that any thinker and Jarl should have seen. How does one move through the suspicious of others and reacts when the things that have been true one's entire life start to crumble?

The person who could have been considered the smartest man in the Castle, Garan Marethi, had committed the tactical and social sin of taking a clear side. From what Serana had gathered, his insistence that Azrael was a traitor had at length convinced enough people that he himself was the traitor. Everything had fallen into place. He had been the only one to never take sides and he had a secure position at the Lord's side, one that very few could rival, while also having the reputation of being uninterested in political maneuvering. _How quickly a person's effort to prove something can be turned into arguments for the exact opposite._ Garan had prospered and thrived in the low-key existence of the court, but when change had reached him, he had fallen prey to it.

Azrael walked towards a corner, keeping at a safe distance from it. It was the door that went into Feran Sadri's laboratory, and the alchemist was still alive. He had not seen him at the massacre at the Blue Palace and he had not seen him among the ones being incinerated by the Dragons. He stepped forward, turning his torso ever so slightly towards the door and keeping an eye on the sliver of the room he could see from where he was.

He heard a whistle. It wasn't anything that came from outside. It had echoed once inside the hall. _An arrow?_ It was the only thing that matched the sound. The Dragonborn calculated the spot from which It came from and dodged to the side, hearing the whistle coming closer and then the clear sound of an arrow hitting the rock. _Rargal_ … he thought, looking at the projectile. _And here I thought you were only able to manage brainless slaves._

There wasn't enough time to tend to the Thrallmaster, who would surely be behind a line of minions that he had kept for the occasion. Azrael had seen movement behind the corner, but there was something else. There were at least three vampires scattered across the hall, and a number of thralls that he couldn't calculate with precision.

'Behind you!' Serana called out.

Instead of turning, he dashed forward and into Feran's laboratory. _I wonder who is it coming from behind me._ Ronthil had not been burnt to a crisp yet, not that he had seen, but there might have been others. _Ronthil is the best option. Rargal seems unlikely_. What he had seen behind the corner was indeed the figure of Feran Sadri, who suspected of having been spotted and had already a few spells crackling in his hands. Azrael focused intensely, but deep down he sneered at the irony of it. When it had all begun, a mage of the skill and age of Feran had challenged his life and had nearly killed him. _How the tables have turned_. It wasn't child's play to dart at Feran quickly enough to prevent him from firing one of the thunderbolts that sparked in his hands, but the battle was unevenly matched.

The Dragonborn's blade hissed towards the vampire's hands, which were drawn forward in the effort to cast the spell. Feran saw the danger and backed down, but Azrael chained the long running step into a leap and caught up to him. In one movement they had found themselves on the opposite end of the room, and only their preternatural mind and bodies saved them from comically crashing against the wall. Instead, they both turned and the same pattern resumed, but it could not go on for a long time. Azrael heard footsteps and more whistles in the hall, a sign that Serana had chosen not to fight for the time being but that she was still in their line of sight.

The sound of glass shattering came from above. Azrael leapt to the side and saw Feran doing the same. With the corner of his eye he saw the stained-glass window falling to pieces, while some of the splinters were blown inside the room. The rain of small glass shards missed both of them, but the gust of frigid air that came in right afterwards was different. Neither of them felt it too much, but Feran looked worried at the window before his eyes returned to his enemy.

The Dragonborn called forth some magicka in his hand, shaping it in a physical force that resembled the one that pulls all objects towards the ground. He aimed at the shelf, where long lines of potions were stocked, and closed the grip on as many of them as he could. He waved his hand to the side, towards Feran, and the bottles all flew towards the vampire, who did his best to evade them. Some of the flasks and vials shattered against him and their content spilled all over him. A groan twisted his composed features and he wiped away the liquid from his face. _Distracted and thrown out of rhythm_ , Azrael thought. _The only thing I needed._

Meanwhile, in the main hall, he heard one spell after the other. Blasts of ice and rolls of thunder alternated one another as magicka bled through the tear that Serana had opened in Aetherius. _She's focused_ , Azrael thought. He brought all of his attention back to his own enemy. There would be a time to decide whether he should help her or not, but he was dealing with the more dangerous threat at the moment.

Azrael lunged at Feran with a thrust, which his enemy avoided and that the Dragonborn had never planned to hit. He recovered quickly from the strike and chained it into a slash. Feran bent backwards to avoid it, trying to keep the short distance, and Azrael had barely enough time to bring back the blade as the vampire leapt forward and grasped with his claws at his hooded face. He called back the blade, eluded the opponent's swipe and traced a swift, diagonal arc in the air with the blade, sending fire-shaped magicka into the handle.

The edge of the longsword cut along the vampire's throat and burnt it. The blade sank into the dry flesh and reached the still larynx and the insides of the neck, the fire bursting from the core of the sword and burning it from the inside. With a twist of his wrist, Azrael straightened the blade and cut right through the vertebrae, severing the spinal cord just below the head and making his enemy's head tumble down beside the beheaded corpse.

A feral surge of strength filled him to the brim, as if clearing it with fire from the inside out. His mind turned clearer than it had been since the combat had started and his body was filled with new-found energy. The vigor that spread through his body reached his fingers last, where it lingered, without anywhere to go, and it made them quaver with energy. The sense of touch spread to his mouth and teeth, the ends of which seemed to tingle. The enjoyment of the battle was washed away and he returned to his previous diffused focus, a complete understanding of the situation.

He turned to the side, and his gaze fell to the floor. _Serana, my dear, I have underestimated you_. Azrael would have been surprised to see Ronthil there, and not even to see Ronthil's corpse, but Ronthil's corpse was there and it was covered in blue lines and white hues, hovering in the air and being brought back onto his feet while surges of necromantic energies irradiated from his body like heat does from a fire. The mark of the magicka that was filling him with life was Serana's. _Ronthil is young, but still powerful_. She had never dabbled in necromancy too much, not even the situation was dire, but that didn't roll out the possibility that she had her mother's talent in that branch of magic.

Serana turned around and saw him. 'Go!' she screamed, her voice almost covered by the thunderbolt she threw at the balcony right afterwards. The blue flash of lightning disintegrated the stone and send a rain of splinters everywhere, but didn't hit anyone. 'Go to the cathedral. I can handle him.'

 _Rargal_ , Azrael thought. He was right. He couldn't see him, there was a wall between him and the side of the hall, but he could guess he would be there with his small army of thralls. _If she can manage this, it truly is best that I keep Harkon occupied._ He might have yet a few aces up his sleeve. _And I have mine…_ he though, his hand running behind his back to touch Auriel's Bow. His fingers moved to the quiver, where he touched the sunhallowed arrows that he would need. He knew them by heart, simply by the shape of the vanes.

After a quick glance, he climbed up the stairs in a quick dash and proceeded towards the cathedral. The thunders coming from the hall came in between the sound of the Dragons' tails slamming against the sides of the Castle. Now several points of the walls were caved in, and dust fell down from multiple spots on the ceiling. The red light of the Blood Sun came in through the openings left by the shattered windows, and the roars and shouts of the Dragons echoed above them.

The corridor that run along the left wall and proceeded straight to the temple to Molag Bal was filled with rubble. The wall had shattered in one place, and the entire surface of stone above it was shaking and filled with cracks and widening crevices. The bigger chunks had fallen down amidst a sea of gravel and dust. Some had red shadows dancing over them, where the flames had struck them for so long that they had heated even hard rock.

As he rushed through the Castle, Azrael remembered every scene, every conversation that had happened on that overhead walkway; he recalled the details so vividly that he saw himself talking with each person in front of him, two figures conjured up by the magic of the mind, which had rules of its own. A chilling hiss resounded from behind, and the angry groan that followed could be none other's than Rargal. _She found him; it won't be long before she gets to him_. With Ronthil's corpse as her ally, Serana would be joining him soon enough.

The Dragonborn strode towards the door of the temple, pondering for one last time a question that he often asked in those circumstances. He felt lucid, his mind clear and his will intact. But what did it feel like to be consumed by madness and obsession, like it was for Harkon? Was there a chance that it felt exactly like what he himself felt in that moment? The answer was always that no, it wasn't. Azrael didn't seem himself falling prey to any kind of madness aside from the one Alduin himself had been consumed by. Still, when striding so fare away from the beaten path sanity is something never to be taken for granted.

The vase which contained the Nightshade flowers that Serana had put in front of the temple's door had been cracked by a rain of gravel that had come from above. The elaborate tiles were covered by a thin layer of dust. Azrael pushed open the doors, knowing that it was the last time he would see that place. The two wings opened wide and clanged against the walls.

'Where is my daughter?'

Azrael raised his eyes on the figure standing at the opposite side of the temple, near the shrine of Molag Bal. Aside from himself, he had not seen another Vampire Lord since his first days in dealing with the vampires, when he had struck one down. What was strange about Harkon was that he looked different. He was adorned with even more extravagant pieces of armor that covered his groin and legs, with golden layers and a red tasset. The rest was just as the Dragonborn remembered. The wings, the hideous face, all of it.

He stepped into the temple, twirling the blade once by his side, raising his hand and sliding it away. _I wonder what he'll think of this_ , he wondered, but there was very little expression that could come from the deformed face of the Vampire Lord. 'She's close,' he answered. 'You need not fret.'

A deformed laughter came from the bat-like throat. 'Yes, clearly. I should have known it was only a matter of time before your own madness outgrew your loyalty.'

'Madness? Loyalty? Do you even know what those words mean? You are consumed by the former and unaware of the latter's existence. You cannot even fathom what happened beyond these walls, or why I am here now.'

'Why you are here is of no consequence. You are a fool, Azrael. Do you think I am mad? Well, at least I'm mad with a good insanity. And what are you mad with? Power? Ambition? No, you wouldn't have torn down this Castle otherwise. If you had come back with Auriel's Bow, those pitiful fools that call themselves my Court would have obeyed you. But you're tearing this Castle down.'

'I am,' Azrael said, coldly and emotionlessly. 'Power, however, comes in many shapes and forms. I have made a choice, and I have rebuffed the power that your Castle provided. But this is something you'll never understand. I believe you would have been ready to sacrifice me before you had understood it.'

'A vampire's life and a fleeting piece of wisdom were a small price to pay for the betterment of our kind.'

'The betterment of our kind is something so different depending on one's perspective that I doubt we can talk about it at all. You would give the vampires free reign over this world, while I think that channeling their strength in a focused way and bringing their weaknesses together to form a new way of life is the best solution. I would argue in favor of resisting the distraction of temptation, while you would argue that temptation is so rooted in the vampire that there is no use in resisting it. Our views cannot reconcile, and so one of them must go away.' He touched the top of Auriel's Bow upper limb with two fingers. 'And the Bow belongs to me now.'

'So, the strongest will win? No moral claim?' Somehow even the grotesque voice of the Vampire Lord could convey a note of sarcasm.

'No,' Azrael said, less interested in the banter and more in the reasoning. The life of the mind was still the most exciting kind. 'No fight had ever decided who was right or wrong, only who survived. There is no use in deciding which one of us is right, because our skill in battle will decide which of the two alternatives should go down the centuries, whether it is the right one or the wrong one. And I think that from your perspective, what you hold is the most logical option.'

'What do you know of my perspective? You haven't spent millennia contemplating every choice, every possible alternative.'

'Thankfully, I don't need to. And what have millennia taught you, anyway? Your viewpoint is flawed, partial, distorted and plagued by such boredom and yearning for death that losing yourself in the prophecy seemed the only escape.'

'But the prophecy is done. The Sun had been blackened.'

Azrael took out the Bow and felt for a sunhallowed arrow. He picked one from the quiver and looked at him. 'The Blood Sun was a warning. But after this day, it shall not rise ever again as long as I hold the Bow.'

Harkon groaned. 'Your stubbornness speaks poorly of you. Think of the things you could do with the Bow. What we could have done together! There are still many gifts I bestow upon you.'

'They are of no interest to me. I haven't come here to negotiate, Harkon. This is the final curtain call. This is the end of it all.'

Azrael drew the bow, aimed for the torso of the Vampire Lord and released. The string quavered for as long as the projectile was in flight. The arrowed glowed with a faint, white light as it flew through the air. However, even as it reached its half-way point, the Dragonborn saw that it would not hit Harkon. The bat-like beast had dashed to the side, quickly enough to avoid the missile.

The arrowhead hit the statue of Molag Ball. Azrael averted his eyes as the explosion of light shattered the head of the statue. When he looked back, he saw the blood coming from the spring spewing in the air and falling on the floor, the top of the fountain lying in pieces all around. He shifted, putting the bow away and coiling his fingers around the longsword's grip. _He's quicker than I thought._ It had been a simple mistake, one that had cost him only one arrow and a little time. And now, the real fight began, one that he had not planned on fighting.

 _Subtlety and subterfuge_ , he thought, rehearsing all the useful spells in his hands. They were both too strong to let the other mount a full-on offensive move. The first one to manage would be the one to win. Much like it had been with Feran, it would be about stopping and evading attacks before they happened. The moment they had committed, one of them had fallen, and it would be the same thing now. Azrael had grown quite averse to fire spells throughout his first weeks as a vampire, but they would have been useful now.

Azrael was ready to counter-attack, but Harkon didn't propel any kind of projective against him, didn't charge in and didn't do anything that might have been interpreted as hostile. He floated slowly to the side. _Someone with power can control when and how everything happens_ , the Dragonborn thought, _and_ _he's mimicking it_. The probability that he is really studying me are so slim that they can be eliminated from all predictions. He followed the Vampire Lord's movement, and walked to the side.

Harkon's hand twitched, and a moment later a red light shined in his palm. Azrael summoned a trickle of magicka and opened his palm towards the Vampire Lord. The small stream of ethereal energy crept into the magic flow of the opponent and cut the link between his Aetherius and the spell. Harkon groaned as the red light died out in his hand, only to return a moment later.

Back to the standstill. Dispelling the magic projectile had required more energy than the Dragonborn had thought, but whether it was because of the vampiric nature of the spell or his own inexperience with cutting off magicka from those kinds of spells, he didn't know. The incantation was still ready in the clawed hand of the Vampire Lord, but it wasn't being charged. That would require some time, a time that would allow Azrael to cut off the link once again. _It's an interesting game that we're playing. We're testing out alternatives, and seeing to which ones the adversary has an answer. I'd be delighted to play it all the way through, but we won't have the pleasure._

Azrael fired glances at the temple and at the door, lasting each a split second, before returning his attention to his enemy. However, he had acquired much information. _Any structural damage will bring this place down._ That was something to keep in mind later. The tremors were now reaching them, and the loud yet muffled thundering crashing that came through the halls and the windows meant that on the other side of the Castle the first walls were coming down under the assault of the Dragons. However, the temple was still sealed and remained closed to the outside. Azrael had noticed a few bats hanging from the pillars and flying about, and he didn't remember them being there before.

A shattering sound came from behind him. He turned, stealing one last glance at Harkon but failing to see any movement on his part. The sound was followed by a screech, but even before that the Dragonborn had recognized the sound of a gargoyle coming to life. _I don't know if mental illusions will work on such a narrow-minded creature_. The best alternative was to kill it. _Illusion works on an interesting curve,_ he pondered. The most difficult being to influence were the ones who were either immensely or abysmally intelligent. Those who were at one point in between were the easiest to influence.

The gargoyle had colored veins along his skin, as many of the more advanced ones had. The infusion of life into the was a fascinating process, but once their stony skin came off they were quite simple to kill. The Dragonborn seized up the creature with a glance, observing it as it towered over him and shook off what remained of the stone skin. _Two swings at most, or Harkon will be biting my neck before I deal with this one_. He dashed towards the monster and pointed the blade forward.

The first thrust impaled the beast against the column behind it, but Azrael retracted the blade immediately. The strength of those fiends was incredible, and if it had moved while his blade was still in there it might have damaged it, even if it would have died in the process. He prepared for the second swing, taking advantage of the creature's confused state and aiming right at the neck, where he could sever the head from the body and all the enchanted veins that ran along it. He raised the blade beside his ear.

A powerful tremor came from behind them, along with a shrill and piercing sound. Azrael leapt forward, beyond the gargoyle, and looked back from over his shoulder while preparing another hit against the creature. Shrill, cascading. He couldn't quite decide what the sound had been until he looked at the back of the hall, and looked at the light. The window. The massive window at the end of the temple had fallen apart all at once, and the gargantuan head of a Dragon poked through the opening.

There was red glass everywhere. A few flying pieces had hit Azrael on the back, but he had hardly felt anything. The gargoyle had been distracted by the sound and had turned for a moment too long. The Dragonborn was able to charge up the strike with more time than he needed, line it up and slash right along the nape of the fiend's neck. He immediately dashed to the side and looked ahead, uncertain as to Harkon's next move. _Predictable, yet not obvious,_ he thought once he had looked. The Vampire Lord had turned away from him and was aiming his spell at the Dragon.

Azrael calculated briefly, and decided to stay as far away as he could. _The Dovah will have his way_. He spent a moment trying to remember his name, but among the shattered glass and the red light he didn't recognize him by the head alone. The chance was eliminated as a torrent of fire erupted from the Dragon's maws, emitting a light that he had to look away from. The comfortable dark of the Blood Sun was easy to get used to, and every and all sparks of brighter light hurt his eyes like looking in direct sunlight would for a mortal.

The roar of the Dragon and the blinding light of the firestorm continued for a few seconds. Azrael tried to listen, but there weren't many sounds that overwhelmed his brethren's roar and the crackling of the flames. He looked around, batting his eyelids, seeing that some of the bats he had seen were flying away from the heat. One of them lay on the ground in a pool of blood, pierced from side to side by a shard of red glass.

The roar died out, as did the flames. Azrael looked, seeing the Vampire Lord flattening behind a pillar, clawing his own flesh in the attempt to suffocate the pain. His skin was scorched and burnt on the right shoulder, and the red tasset was completely burnt on the same side. The right side of his face was deformed and charred, and the pointed ear had been vaporized. The movements of his head were twitchy and hectic. _Well, well._

The Dragon roared, drawing his head back and getting it unstuck from the narrow pillars between the windows. In the attempt he ripped several crevices in the nearby wall. _Vennesetiid, tell me I have put my trust where it was worth_. Azrael didn't wait idly, but he watched the unstable pillar up until he saw a shadow descending on it. _Yes, I have_. A thunderous crash echoed through the hall, and the crevices in the pillar disappeared into a cloud of dust and gravel. The upper part of the pillar fell on the outside of the temple, while the lower half collapsed inwards. Foreboding creaks came from the wooden supports on the roof, where the wood was already cracking.

Azrael felt a presence. Serana. He had paid almost no attention to the door, but the sound of its wings opening had reached his senses, albeit without his conscious awareness. _Good. Now that she's here, there is no way he can escape us._

Harkon moved out of the way of the falling pillar, but Azrael knew what to do. _I haven't used that spell since Faralda and I designed it,_ he thought. It wasn't the subtlest thing in the world, which meant it wasn't among his common arsenal. However, it was designed to intimidate the quick-minded and kill the slow-minded.

He summoned fire in both his hands, and the flame took root on his back as well. The flame surged across his body as magicka flew in more abundantly, until the blazes became so strong that they lifted him from the ground. With a last command to the ethereal energy, the Dragonborn gushed all of that accumulated energy onward. He took flight on wings of fire as a blazing trail was left behind him and he was propelled forward, right towards the Vampire Lord.

Harkon saw it coming, but his only retreat was backwards. Azrael slowed his advanced and stopped, dispersing the flames and standing on his feet. A hundred creaks and squeaks were coming from above, but Harkon trapped and on his own. He could go nowhere safe. He was twisting from the pain, a hideous groan on his face as he tried to focus on the danger. I _wonder how he'll survive this, if he does_. Serana was covering his back, so there weren't many places where he could go.

Beyond the doors of the temple came a loud crash. _A piece of the ceiling,_ Azrael thought. _No wall could fall and produce that sound._ He kept his eyes on Harkon, especially since he was looking towards the fountain, the one Azrael had shattered with the arrow at the beginning. _But that's right under the collapsing piece. There's something I don't know, it would seem._

Harkon did indeed beat both wings and fly in that direction. The ceiling finally caved in and fell down, bring the two pillars adjacent to the fallen one down with it. Azrael backed down, using Serana as a reference in the space of the temple, and looking as the chunk of stone precipitated over Harkon's head and he didn't make any effort to move away from it. _Either way, this is the time._

He drew the Bow from his back, searched for another sunhallowed arrow and picked it as well. He brought both in front of him and nocked it, drawing the string all the way to his chin while aiming at the same time and releasing. With a stationary target it was the easiest shot in the world.

The arrow struck Harkon in the shoulder at the same time as the heap of stone and gravel fell on him.

Time itself seemed to slow down. Azrael looked at the broken fountainhead, spilling red blood all over the floor, forming red streams that cascaded down the short set of stairs. The dust that hung in the air above the buried end of the temple shone in the blood red light, and it wasn't settling. It kept floating, refusing to lie down. With the crashes and creaks of the falling ceiling gone, the roars that came from the outside and the powerful strikes that the Dragons gave to the Castle's walls seemed an afterthought, something that was registered by their senses but barely reached their awareness.

Azrael was only faintly aware of Serana's footsteps as she walked up to his side. She still had her fingers clutched around the dagger, not unlike how Azrael was still holding the bow. 'Is he dead?' she asked.

'I don't know.' She had just voiced the question they both were asking themselves. 'I don't think he is.' He looked. _He can't be. Why would he have jumped into danger?_ As much as the rhetoric between him and Serana led them to say that he was mad, Harkon was merely obsessed with his goal. His sense of self-preservation in the immediate was intact, and it always had been. He couldn't have a hidden death wish that would reveal itself in this way. 'If you're not afraid, go closer and poke him out. I'll be back here to stick an arrow between his eyes, if need be.'

'I'm not afraid,' she said stepping forward.

The moment she finished speaking the gravel near the fountain rose and collapsed. It fell to the side, rolling down the stairs, and yet more of it rose. Azrael brought his hand towards the quiver, ready to nock another arrow. Serana looked at him, stepping back beside him. 'I believe we have our answer. He's not the first vampire to survive a ceiling crashing down on him,' she said with a playful sigh.

'True. Vyrthur had no other plans to kills us when we survived it. I hope we're better prepared than he was for what comes next.'

A shoulder wearing a battered black pauldron emerged from the heap of gravel. The cape had been ripped from the brooch, and nothing but a torn sliver remained. The shape of Lord Harkon slowly emerged from the debris, covered in dust and heavily wounded, but human. _He has reverted. Was is the Bow?_ The wounds were even more monstrous now that he had a form so common to the eyes of the Dragonborn. The burnt side of his face was black as coal and his ear was missing; the burn continued almost to his mouth, and the corner of the lips was missing. The armor was smashed on the opposite shoulder, which exposed a large gauge caused by a falling rock. There was hardly any blood coming out of it.

Serana leaned in closer. 'Should we attack him now?'

The implicit question was quite clear to him. There is indeed much to be discovered yet. He pondered their chances for a moment. 'No,' he said, 'we'll let him get on his feet.'

'So honorable of you, you… pathetic half-breed,' Lord Harkon said. The intact side of his face twitched with pain and confusion, but his eyes burned with hatred. 'And you, Serana. How have you been? Is your pet keeping you entertained?'

'He has kept me safe,' she retorted, 'which is already more than you have ever done.'

'You should think before you speak, my child. I have given you much, but you've taken everything I provided for you and thrown it all away.'

Azrael felt the surge of rage coming from her even from a distance. 'Provided for me? Are you insane? You've destroyed our family. You've killed other vampires. All over some prophecy that we barely understand. No more. I'm done with you. And him,' she said, pointing at Azrael, 'the pathetic half-breed, is beyond your reach. You will not touch him.'

The burnt face was distorted by a mocking grin. Harkon's hand went to the hilt of the curved blade he kept by his side. 'I see the Dragons outside are not the only ones with fangs around here. Your voice drips with the venom of your mother's influence. How alike you've become.'

'How ironic,' Azrael said, 'that they will both outlast you.'

Lord Harkon stared at the Dragonborn for a long moment, and his left hand went to the red pool in which the fountain had been pouring blood until a few minutes before. He sank his hand in the red fluid, and then dragged it up again. An object, dripping red from all sides, came out of the fount. When the sides stopped streaming with blood, Azrael recognized the shapes.

It was the Bloodstone Chalice.

'Everything is yet to be seen,' said Harkon, raising the Chalice and bringing it closer to his face. 'As Molag Bal is my witness, this day will be mine. You will not stand in my way. All men will fall before me.'

'With luck, some of those men will be better than you and stand against you,' Azrael said. He put the bow away and grasped the hilt of the longsword. He could not win that fight with one more shot, not for the moment. He took some more time. 'It's almost comical that you should rule men. When I came to Skyrim, if I had thought all men equal to you, I wouldn't have a sliver of respect left for them.'

Lord Harkon brought the Chalice to his lips and drank deeply, emptying it. He swallowed the last drop and lowered it, casting it aside with unnecessary strength. 'What is a man?' Harkon growled. The Chalice struck a pillar and scathed the stone, but it also shattered into four jagged pieces. 'A miserable pile of secrets. But enough talk. Have at you!'

Azrael had just finished pulling the longsword out and felt the slight rush and brief feeling of omnipotence of predicting the future correctly. He wouldn't have had the time to fire another shot. Harkon dashed towards him with unnatural speed, making use of some power he must had acquired in the millennia spent being a vampire. The Dragonborn felt his mind strained to the limit of its capabilities in trying to assess everything before it had to give up. The raised blade and the direction he came from. Those were the only two essential things. With those, he would survive.

The blow came swift but far from unexpected. He parried it by placing the longsword horizontally, but Harkon kept the blade still and pushed instead of letting it slide. The skin on the burnt side of his face had seemed to have healed after he had drunk from the Chalice. It was livelier, and although still black it was less monstrous. _Garan did claim the Chalice was powerful. On second thought, that speed could be a result of the artifact's power._

Azrael pushed against Harkon's blade. Surprisingly, their strength was equal. _This will not be won with strength, nor sheer cunning_. The battlefield was simple only to the inexpert eye. The temple was on the verge of collapsing. More Dragons would surely come in to help him. Behind him, he heard more gargoyles bursting to life, which was probably why Serana wasn't helping him. _She must be behind me, fighting the beasts._

Harkon took one hand away from the hilt of the blade, though the force he could put on it remained almost the same. _He must know that any further pressure will shatter his weapon._ Azrael followed his left hand, which went to his side and filled with a red glow. A draining hex, of vampiric nature. There was nothing like that color in standard magic, and even the charms that cursed one's mind with murderous madness glowed with a less intense shade of red. The hand of Lord Harkon came forward, and a crimson mist spewed forth from it.

Azrael felt the haze touch his flesh, and immediately a dull pain filled his entire body as everything that made him strong started to wane. The strength was sapped from his limbs and the focus from his mind. _He's open on the side_. He moved his weight to one side, twisting his wrist to let the weight of the enemy's blade slide to the longsword's tip, and kicked Harkon in the ribcage. He landed the hit and the red haze ceased to come his way, but the Lord managed to seize his foot before he could retract it. He freed the longsword and whirled it above his head, threatening the opponent's throat, and summoned a small orb of fire that he threw at the vampire's chest.

He missed. The projectile hissed beside Harkon as he ducked to the side to avoid it.

' _Su Grah Dun!_ ' Unlike other times, where the flow of the inner power towards his throat was slow and melodic, this time instinct had answered. He had chosen, but the Words had come with an unusual ease to his mouth. The spirit of the tempest flew out of his lips and infused his arms with speed. It would last but a few seconds, but he could make them count.

He was the only one to see the blade as it moved, as the ones of Harkon visibly failed to keep track of its movements. Azrael first brought the blade down on the opponent's hand, which was closed strongly around his boot, and grazed it so as not to touch the metal of his greaves. Two fingers flew away, but he was already hitting elsewhere, at the height of Harkon's temple, calibrating the strike carefully. His leg was now free, and he would need to land on his feet if he wanted to survive. He struck well, cutting a large wound right above the opponent's ear. He was about to strike a third time, but he glimpsed at a red shape peeking into the temple.

He interrupted his third strike and merely infused the blade with a little fire, making the edges flare and taking Harkon's attention for just a while longer.

The head that had appeared in the hole that the fallen pillar had left was of one of the two Dragons that came crashing down into the temple. One was Odahviing, who had followed him there and the other was a younger one by the name of Lunsoiiz, a white-scaled Dovah that had been among the last to be revived by Alduin before his defeat. He looked at the window, and glimpsed at the bone white scales of Paarthurnax. The two Dragons charged in, giving mighty shoves with their shoulders to whatever stood in their way. Odahviing opened his maws and a flood of flames erupted from his mouth. Azrael dashed to the side, once again seeing that he had made the right decision.

Two suffocated screams came from Lord Harkon, after which he shouted in pain in a way that no mortal could. It was a scream that could rend flesh from bone. Azrael felt barely a thing in hearing the man scream, but he sensed something. He knew that in hearing such a sound, most people would feel pity for the man who was being inflicted so much pain. Serana surely felt it. He didn't, or rather, he denied the effects that such pity might have had on him. His mind was cold and crystal-clear as he looked at the flood of fire engulfing the Lord's figure as he tried to stumble his way out of it.

The other Dragon ignored Harkon and trudged straight towards the side, where more gargoyles were coming out of hiding. He raised a clawed wing and smashed one of the beasts into the ground, flattening the head against the floor and tearing long crevices into the stony skin with his claws. Azrael followed the Dragon's tail, however, which whipped the side looking for another one of the brutes but crashed against a pillar instead. The column shattered and fell to the ground, and an entire section of the overhead loggias that overlooked the temple fell down with them.

Azrael covered his eyes. The heat of the flames was scorching his skin and the dust was blinding him. Havoc reigned all around him. _And the Left Hand reaps…_ he thought, once again unable to forget that metaphor.

Odahviing closed his maws and the flames stopped flowing from its throat. The fire dissolved without a trail of smoke and died out in one last gust of boiling heat. Kneeling on the floor was Lord Harkon, his back scorched black and most of his hair burned. Large, black spots now dotted his head. _What foul magic keeps you from dying, I don't want to know,_ Azrael thought. There was power and power over death, and then there were the things which didn't allow you to die completely. Harkon was still alive through the sheer strength of his hatred and little else.

The Lord raised, his hand twitching and quaking, but holding the sword quite tight despite the two missing fingers. He lunged forward, and Azrael was ready for him. He knew that, as much as the tales tell of battles that lasted days and nights, battles of titans often ended far too swiftly. Before the winner had the chance to appreciate the flow and the ferociousness of combat and before either had really understood what had gone down. He remembered it, and made sure to remember every second of that fight. The heat, the dust, the smell of the burnt dead flesh, the hideous face of his enemy. He focused, descended fully into the situation, and fought with all himself.

The blades crashed in front of them, but this time Harkon brought his back and freed it. He performed a complex uppercut, which Azrael deflected while also preparing for the probable follow-up, which came and was blocked. The blades once again bounced off one another. The Dragonborn performed a narrow slice, aiming at the legs, but Harkon was quick enough to parry it. A burnt and clawed hand neared Azrael's face, but he ducked and sliced. He infused the flame in the blade, but its edges merely touched the knee of his opponent, who was in so much pain he hardly noticed.

The riposte was quick and effective. Harkon hit Azrael's longsword at an angle the Dragonborn had seen as dangerous but could do nothing to eliminate. The blade twitched in his wrist and threatened to fly away. He grinned, feeling the rush of the riddle to solve as he thought of what to do, and when he figured it out his sneer widened. His hand vibrated with energy as he used telekinetic energy to hold the weapon's grip close to his hand, unable to fly away no matter how out of his hand it was. He soon regained a hold.

Lord Harkon had not seen that coming. Azrael came back with a strike, with all the strength he could muster. The lord of the vampires raised his weapon quickly and without finesse, and the blade crashed against one another.

One moment there was the clang of metal. The second, there was a shattering sound and a rain of splinters flying in every direction. Azrael raised his forearm in front of his face just in time to shield himself from two of them, who bounced off his gauntlet but could have very well pierced his face or eyes. _Those splinters… They were his sword, were they not?_ It's the only possible solution. The hit must have been so strong that even the sword carried by Harkon had shattered. _Mine's intact_ , Azrael realized by the weight in his hands. _It'll be chipped, but intact._

Harkon growled. Azrael peaked, and saw that there were small splinters all over his face, but the thing that bothered him was another. Two bats were preying on him, trying to bite his neck and flying around making a nuisance of themselves. _This must be Serana._ There was a black haze gathering a few feet behind Harkon, and he had seen Serana using such a method of teleportation. _She'll be behind him. This might be nearing its end._ The thrill of the battle and the flow of combat were filling him with energy, and his vampiric strength ran wild, filling his limbs and clearing his mind.

Around them, the temple was coming down. The Dragons had murdered the gargoyles and were plodding through the cathedral, whipping down pillars with their tails and burning the tapestries with storms of fire. Chunks of stone rained from the ceiling like hail during a storm, followed by cascades of gravel and dust. The windows melted under the heat or exploded at the hits, and large crevices opened along the walls.

Lord Harkon looked at the Dragonborn, and Azrael saw a hatred without end in his eyes. They were monstrous, they had nothing human that remained. The vampire had eaten away everything, and the pain and the despair of a lifetime gone awry did the rest. He stumbled towards him, still beset by the two bats, and didn't notice Serana sticking a dagger in his shoulder. _Ignoring the threat that his daughter posed,_ Azrael thought, _he makes the same mistakes on the brink of death as he made in life. Poetic, in a way._

The Dovahkiin brought the blade down at the height of Harkon's stomach while he was still busy clawing the two bats and trying to rip out the dagger that had stabbed him from behind. 'Serana!' he screamed. 'Your own father…' The Dragonborn laid the longsword's tip against his abdomen. Magicka flew in his arms and the edges of the blade flared with fire.

He pulled the blade up, cutting along Lord Harkon's entire abdomen, chest and up to his chin, leaving a flaming trail behind it.

 _We all think that the world cares about people who are important,_ thought Azrael, _but it doesn't_. The sounds of Castle falling to pieces and the roar of the Dragons didn't cease to honor the moment when the millennia-old Vampire Lord unceremoniously fell to the ground, his chest opened in two and his scorched entrails falling out of him. He had not yet touched the ground that his body begun dissolving into a fine red dust. _You fool. You think men a pile of secrets, and because of this you lost. To me, men are an open book, ripe for the reading._

Azrael raised his eyes towards Serana. Her cheek was scratched, and her armor was dusty and grazed. Her jaw was clenched, but she appeared calm. She looked back at him, a look of incredulity in her eyes. _A bit too soon for that._

'Come on,' he told her, striding towards her. He pointed at the other side of the temple, where the Dragons had entered and where there was nothing but a pile of rubble. More chunks of stone fell behind them, and a thunderous crash of a wall coming down sent a cloud of dust and gust of hit wind in their backs. 'There's nothing left for us here.'

* * *

A/N: And down goes two, and Azrael's little story proves prophetic after all. You'll have to excuse the Castlevania, but it was too good to pass it up, especially after I made him throw the Chalice to the side like that.

Now, I said that last time I said there were a few things that I wanted to say. For this once, I'll explain the reason for my prolonged absence. I'll save the stuff that centers around the story for the epilogue, which is much short and more digestible than this behemoth of a final showdown.  
As I was saying, the reason I have been away is that in the meantime I have written a couple of original novels and self-published one of them; the other is still in the process of being edited. It took quite a long time, as you can imagine, but I had a break and it was the right time to finish DKNR.

The next and final chapter, is, as I said before, the Epilogue. I'll write a heap of notes afterwards for those who are curious. It should drop a few days after this.


	30. Epilogue: Day Keeper, Night Reaper

Epilogue: _Day Keeper, Night Reaper_

* * *

The Dragonborn looked at the skeleton and bent his head on both sides. 'Would you help me move that femur?' he asked, pointing at the fiendishly large but short femur-like boen that lied on the other side.

'Which way should it go?' Valerica asked.

'A little left. It wouldn't coincide with the rest of the abdomen otherwise.' Azrael stepped to the side, circling around the huge shape made up by those thick Dragon bones. The skeleton didn't look as large and intimidating as the beasts themselves, but it was big enough to inspire a sense of awe. Those bones, however, seemed worn out. Old and withered.

Serana quietly looked at Azrael and her mother as they worked to painstakingly put the lines of the skeleton back exactly where they belonged. Only by casting telekinetic spells at the same time had they been able to move the bones without disrupting all the work they had already put in it. They really were two minds alike. Their coordination was a testament to that.

Valerica closed her hand and looked at the legbone. 'How does it look?'

'It's well aligned.'

The two exchanged a glance. 'Whatever it is you want to do, can you do it now?' she asked.

The Dragonborn nodded. 'I believe I can.'

Azrael let his shoulders fall, relaxing, and he closed his eyes for a moment under the dark shadow of the hood. He spread his arms a little wider, as if trying to grasp the air around him. As always, there was no change in veil between Aetherius and their plane. As hard as it was to believe, what he summed wasn't magic in the traditional sense.

' _Slen Tiid Vo_!'

Reality altered for a moment. Serana felt it as a slight lightheadedness, but she knew that there was much more than that. Valerica watched intently, half curious and half impressed. There Men and Mer who believed that power could be gained only through devious means and was evil by nature. And yet, there was a form of power that either came from a natural gift or through years of discipline. Power truly was something immaterial and out of the world, and one could then influence events with it.

The skeleton of the Dragon slowly began to glimmer. The air around it filled with glittering fragments that shone in the light of the setting Sun. Those fragments gathered around the bare bones, depositing on them or a little distance from them, and as they assembled they took the shape and aspect of sturdy scales. The two women looked at it, unable to think of it as anything else than a miracle, as time contracted and moved in ways it was never meant to have taken.

One little piece at the time, Durnehviir came back together to his old splendor. Valerica was the only one who had seen the old Dragon at his peak, when his scales were still of a shining orange and the crests and ridges on his head were sharp and intimidating. The wings came back to their shape, not tattered and torn but full, membranous and with sharp claws at their end.

'Dovrahkren, Thuri,' he said. His voice still sounded old, but it was vigorous. ' _Mul Paal Qahnaar_. You have pitted yourself against the Ideal Masters and… _Kron_.'

Azrael crossed his arms, looking the Dragon in his deep golden eyes. _'Mal fah Zeymah._ A small risk, in comparison to what I could have given you.'

Durnehviir turned towards Valerica, seemingly recognizing her without even looking. _'Krosis._ I hope you hold no… _Rahgot…_ against me. I was doing my master's bidding.'

Valerica smiled faintly. 'As all of us do. You did not wish for my suffering. You only wanted to save your own. I can respect that.'

The Dragon bowed his orange, majestic head and turned once again towards the Dragonborn, muttering a few words in his tongue. Serana and Valerica exchanged a glance and they circled around the Dragon. They met near his wing, which he retracted to let them come closer.

'It's all over, then,' Serana said.

Valerica nodded slowly. 'Yes. It's all over.' Her eyes wondered to Castle. The main hall had collapsed on itself, and a crater was left where it once stood. Fallen towers, walls darkened by Dragons' fire and piles of rock and gravel were all that remained of the main part of the Castle. 'I didn't think I would have such a strong reminder of it. I don't know if I like being reminded of what happened, now that I can finally put it behind me.'

'You still have a home.'

'I do,' she said, this time looking at her tower, which was still intact safe for a long scratch in the roof. 'And I will admire the devastation every day as I wake at dusk.'

Serana felt something strange at her mentioning that sign of what was a normal life. 'What will you do?'

'I will return to my research. There is much about the Soul Cairn I must learn still, and Azrael had mentioned a few alchemical ingredients I have never heard of. They must have not been widespread in our time.' She looked at her daughter with a curious look. 'You don't need to worry about me. I'll be happy to go back to my old life.'

'I thought you had all the alone time in the world.'

'Yes, but I was away from the things that really interested me. It was not quite the same thing.'

Serana found it incredible. They would finally have something resembling, in a very distorted way, a normal life. She and Azrael would do whatever needed to be done and have something new to worry about. Her mother would settle in her tower, the only thing left of the Castle, and maybe she could even drop by from time to time. However, she realized only now that she didn't want a normal family. She wanted a tranquility, and it is after the idea of tranquility that most families form from.

Valerica almost seemed to hear and misinterpret her thoughts at the same time. 'You can come visit me anytime, child,' she said. 'You'll always be welcome, now that this is my personal stronghold.'

'We'll come by,' she said.

Next to them, Durnehviir roared loudly and pounded his wings powerfully, lifting into the air. _'Stin!'_ he screamed, before another beat brought him higher. Then he stopped and elongated his neck towards the South, gliding straight back towards Skyrim. The gusts raised by his wings pushed mother and daughter back a little, which it left Azrael unfazed as his watched the Dovah flying away and screaming at the sky the joy of freedom.

'So even if one of them had died in the attack…' Valerica said, leaving the phrase unfinished.

'It's not quite as easy, but yes. I might have been able to bring him back.'

Valerica had felt hopeful when him and Serana had first come down in the Cairns, and her hopes had turned into something more concrete as he saw how much her daughter had changed and how her new-found companion had brought down the Dragon. Her determination had waned when they had not come back for all those weeks, but she had been repaid in full for her patience. Seeing Durnehviir submitting to Azrael's blade a second time with the promise that he would be freed forever of his captivity and the battle for the possession of his soul with the Ideal Masters had been a sight to behold. Valerica couldn't say that she had got a grip of Azrael. He was enigmatic, cold and elusive in ways that she couldn't fully understand. But she respected him, both for his strength, unbreakable will and unparalleled acumen.

She had never though she'd have so much respect for the person who could be thought of as her son-in-law.

She looked at both her daughter and the Dragonborn. 'If we're done, I'll get back in my tower. Four millennia of absence have left my laboratory in quite the mess.'

Azrael nodded. 'You can go.'

Serana looked at her mother as she walked away, wondering if she had sensed the tone in Azrael's voice, too. There was a note of compulsion. He wanted to speak to Serana alone.

He didn't want long, just enough to be out of earshot, although the earshot of a pureblooded vampire is quite long. 'Are you well?' he asked.

Serana looked down for a moment. 'I have just murdered my father. I don't think anyone would feel well after that. But yes, I am as solid as I can be, given the circumstances.'

She listened at how she spoke. It was Azrael who often made explicit how some things were not absolutely true. Considering the situation, given the circumstances… He often said those things, and she had picked up on that as well. Being with him all those months had been a battle against her distaste for ambiguity as much as it had been to take down her father.

'There was one thing I wanted to talk to you about,' Azrael said. 'I think we don't need to clear up that, even after this, I'll never manage to stay put. You know me, or at least enough of me. I suspect you've already made your peace with that.'

'Yes, of course.'

'On the other hand, there is something I can do. I could call in a favor from the Jarl of the Pale. He once offered me a patch of land, and now I believe I have just the idea for what to do with it.'

'Meaning?'

'Since this castle is destroyed,' he said, pointing at the ruins, 'I have decided I'll build one that will inherit its spirit, if not its size. It'll be a lair as much as a home, and it will be all ours. I'll have all I might ever need to keep myself occupied there, and perhaps that will keep me longer in once place. I am not quite as restless when my mind is focused.'

'And… You'll pardon me for asking, but what about the two of us?'

The Dragonborn tittered. 'Yes, together. Until boredom do us part. In fact…' he paused for a moment. 'It's a long story, but I've played the guardian to a young girl in Windhelm who would need a roof over her head. How would Valerica feel about being a grandmother?'

'You could do that?'

'I can. She'd accept. I'll have to do it subtly, or the whole of Skyrim will hear about it. But I can.'

Serana looked at him for a long time, speechless. Azrael threw back his hood, letting the long black hair fall down on his shoulders. He approached her, and she kissed him before he could come any closer. 'It all sounds great,' she whispered.

'I hoped so. You'll see. We'll live lives the ones around us will barely dream of. The world will no longer need neither a Dawnguard to shield them nor the Volkihar to scare them. We'll be the ones. We'll be the worshipped keepers of the day and the dreaded harvesters of the night.'

The two vampires embraced as the Sun went out.

* * *

A/N: The end. For all those who have read through this and are ready to leave, farewell. Mark the story as Favorite and Review if you so wish. I hope you have enjoyed the journey.

For those who are still with me, there is more. For clarity's sake, DKNR will be my last work on this site. However, when I began writing this behemoth of a novel I had no idea what would come next, and there are a million ideas left in the drawer. Just to give you a taste of what could have happened after this ending and to let everyone play with their imagination to their heart's content, I will provide the details of the few that I would have probably followed. This is a list of the various pieces I had thought of that could be follow-ups to DKNR:

1) _When the World Remembers:_ The title is a pretty clear reference. Azrael and Serana are attacked in their house in the Pale, at which they begin an investigation that — through a different route than the game — leads them together to Solstheim. They follow the investigation on two fronts, and Serana and Azrael split. Serana investigates the Skaal, finding much in common with their traditions, while Azrael helps Neloth with his investigation. The two Dunmer bond over the proficiency of their creative minds, and Azrael is recognized a member of House Telvanni, and has contact with other Dunmer. In the process, they destroy the Morag Tong — who, for those who read _The Assassin_ , are the reason Azrael had to leave Morrowind in the first place. At the end, only Azrael enters Apocrypha after him and Serana "share notes", and he defeats Miraak, defying Herma Mora - the same way he did Nocturnal in _Thief of Lives_ \- and bringing the body of the First Dragonborn to the Throat of the World to be buried.

2) _The Forsaken Child:_ Ever wondered why I kept bringing up Azrael's daughter? Well, this story is why. it was supposed to begin when a young Dunmeri girl washes ashore after her ship sank, and wakes up as a looter is taking her possessions from what he believed to be a corpse. Since he's the only person who can help her, she befriends him and lives with him, eventually starting a romantic relationship. The dunmeri girl shows herself to be brazen and bold, and they end up going for a few heists. They are spotted one day and the robbed man performs the Black Sacrament. Azrael sends one of the younger initiates to take care of the matter, and we follow the young man in his search for the thieves. He finds them, but the dunmeri girl manages to kill him with fire magic. Upon finding the dead initiate, Azrael becomes curious of who two might be and sets off to find them. He chases them for a while, and the red eyes of Shadowmere watching them become a haunting sight for the two young thieves. Azrael sneaks in one night, killing the boy and almost the girl too before seeing her and realizing she's his long lost daughter. They part ways, since she's horrified by what her once secretive yet simple father had become, but then decides to go towards him. At home, Serana convinces Azrael to go look for her. They meet as the girl, whose name is Laila, is making her way to his mansion, and she's welcome into the family (She changes her life to such depth that Azrael comes to consider the contract as fulfilled).

3) _Evgir Unslaad:_ Literally meaning "Season Unending", this was to be my take on the Civil war. It was written with a mystery-thriller style, relying on excerpt from history books and letters, and followed different characters and story arcs, like Elisif's, Ulfric's, Brynjolf's and many others, plus two OCs who would occupy the position that the PC would play in the Legion and Stormcloak campaigns respectively. Azrael doesn't intervene in the war, though it is mentioned that he makes frequent visits to Elisif and he is visited by some of the combatants for advise, as his strategic acumen and intelligence are well known. After retaking the Rift and battling fiercely on the walls of Markarth, the Stormcloaks win a decisive battle in the Reach and march straight towards Solitude before an imperial Legion could come in from the South. They siege and take Solitude, but Elisif challenges Ulfric to a duel — like what the Bear of Eastmarch had done with her late husband. Ulfric lets her come close, thinking that she is embracing an honorable death, but Elisif gets close to him and sticks a knife in his neck, which she had hid inside her hair. With Ulfric dead, the Stormcloaks are on the run and a few mysterious events — hinting at Azrael's hidden influence — move the war back in the Empire's favor. Elisif marches victorious inside Windhelm alongside General Tullius and is proclaimed High Queen of Skyrim by the moot. In the epilogue, where she discusses the politics of Tamriel with Azrael, it is revealed that it was him who taught her to the trick she killed Ulfric with.

4) _Dragon Lord:_ All the politics discussed in the Epilogue of _Evgir Unslaad_ is not for fun. _Dragon Lord_ kicks off with Azrael maneuvering in order to provoke the Aldmeri Dominion into beginning a new Great War, which he succeeds in doing. Him and Serana remain in the background while Skyrim's troops march down to support the Empire. With the support of Serana - who has made quite a reputation for herself as a benevolent yet elusive guardian angel to many people- Laila's unconventional tactics and Azrael's strategic acumen earn them a few victories, before their are forced into an impasse. There is a silent truce, but then things start going bad for the Altmer. Their generals are assassinated one by one and their troops report rumors of monsters prowling in the night. Through glimpses, it is revealed that Azrael had unleashed everything at his disposal to him them, with the logistics being coordinated by Delphine. The Dominion tries to circle them by attacking Hammerfell, at which point Azrael, Serana and Skyrim's army go there and fight in a long section set in the deserts. After that, we follow Elisif for a while as Azrael departs for lands unknown. He returns with a large contingent of Dunmer, and they prepare a fight with the Dominion. The battle ensues, and the entire Dominion army is led into a large valley where they think they will be able to exterminate their enemies. However, just as the battle commences, two hundred Dragons come out of the mountains and annihilate their forces. The Dominion falls back, its army decimated. Azrael, as Dragonborn, is offered the Empire, but he abdicates in favor of Elisif; they say that they will groom a new leader together, at which point they will return to the North. Azrael, _de facto_ , is the ruler of the Empire and the most powerful individual of all of Nirn; people begin calling him "Dragon Lord", and everyone knows that he commands everything behind the curtain.

5) No big story here, just a collection of short stories.  
 _Meridia's Lie_ , in which the Champion who claimed Dawnbreaker — which in this "canon" or "timeline" isn't Azrael — follows the trace of a dangerous vampire, only to find out he's the Dragonborn himself. He follows him to his home, where Azrael invites him in. After a long talk, the undead hunter becomes convinced that the undead who need to be killed are the ones who suffer because of un-death, such a the victims of necromancers.  
 _Quagmire,_ a horror story, acts as a prequel to DKNR. It follows the aftermath of the destruction of the Skull of Corruption. Vermina torments Azrael with nightmares for what he has done, and so he asks Erandur how to enter Quagmire and face the Dreamweaver himself. After preparations, he enters and endures the most terrible tortures before confront the Dreamweaver, who forgives him and considers him strong and worthy of admiration. As he goes out of Quagmire, Azrael realizes he no longer fears anything like he did before. This is part of why he manages to remain so composed during the events of DKNR, feeling no fear and only restlessness and sometimes anger, as compared to _The Assassin_ , where he has been afraid of death and defeat a fair few times.

This is the long and short of it. Have fun speculating. As I said, I will probably write nothing more here. I will go through a systematic revision of all of my stories to correct as many mistakes as I can find and will certainly continue to monitor the site, but nothing more.

Take care, everyone.


End file.
